


and his boat on the raging sea

by alatarmaia4



Series: raging sea [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, MAJOR campaign 1 spoilers, Post-Campaign 1 (Critical Role), Whitestone castle ensemble, a little angsty as it turns out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-03-08 14:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18896479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alatarmaia4/pseuds/alatarmaia4
Summary: Cassandra and Tary in Whitestone, beginning from when they were left behind in e102 up til Vox Machina returns home in 115. Even without the main characters present, the show - and the city - must go on."No, Tary is on the floor, clutching his necklace and crying" -Sam, during the fight at the end of 102





	1. The Home Front

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been wanting to write this for SO long, you have no idea.
> 
> This is only the beginning of a very self-indulgent series that will sprawl on through as much of post-campaign Vox Machina's lives as I can stand to write, which is probably all of it. Really, this is just a way of inflicting my baby de Rolo headcanons on all of you. This is your life now. 
> 
> But first, Cassandra.

Cassandra came up to Tary as he was making ready to leave. “They’ve gone already, haven’t they?”

Tary paused in the middle of doing up his boots. Cassandra didn’t look like she’d slept well, or like she was well in any sense of the word. She had a dressing gown wrapped around herself, and despite nothing showing that she didn’t normally show, she looked less dressed - or maybe just less put together - than usual. 

“They left already, yes,” he said. “I guess Percy must not have stopped to say goodbye. It seemed quite urgent,” he added, to soften the blow. Cassandra was Percy’s sister, after all. “I barely had time to get a word in with Vex.”

“Good,” Cassandra said. “Good that they’ve left quickly. This is urgent business.”

“I only regret that I couldn’t aid them with it,” Tary said, wondering what Percy had told her last night. He’d noticed the other human linger behind to speak to Cassandra, but at the time he’d been thinking of the expensive repairs Doty needed. Still needed, technically, but Doty was roadworthy if not fight-worthy. He finished lacing his boots, stood, and swept a courtly bow. “It has been my pleasure to reside in your fair city this past year, Lady Cassandra, but I fear home is calling - quite insistently.”

Cassandra managed a wan smile. “It has been a pleasure to have you,” she said. “You’ve cheered up Vex’ahlia and my brother quite a bit, though I don’t know if you realize to what extent.”

“I’m glad to have done my part,” Tary said honestly. “And Whitestone can feel free to reach out anytime - should you have need of the Darrington Brigade. Though maybe wait a little while until we have more members than just Chod, Doty, and I.” 

“And our Riflemen will be ready should the Darringtons ever have need. But perhaps wait until your need is desperate indeed - I doubt the Empire would look kindly on our interfering.”

Tary laughed, at that, picturing the Crownsguard trying to wrangle Jarrett and Kynan into obeying them, not to say the least of Kynan’s loyal gaggle of trainees. “It’s good to have met you.” He clasped Cassandra’s hand briefly - she wasn’t fond of physical contact. “Farewell - and tell Percy, when he gets back, goodbye from me.”

“Alright. When he gets back.” Neither of them mentioned the particular emphasis Cassandra placed on  _ when. _

As Tary swept out, shouting for Chod, Kynan stepped up just behind Cassandra’s right. “Should I make sure he leaves?”

“No,” Cassandra said. “I don’t mind if he lingers. Besides, regardless of if anyone’s looking, I’m sure whoever’s at the walls will notice his exit. He’s not a subtle man.”

“Fair enough. What now?”

    “There’s still business to be done. Whitestone-”

    “Never sleeps,” Kynan finished. “So you’ve said. But you do, Lady Cassandra, and I think-”

    “I have slept all night, thank you,” Cassandra lied briskly, tugging her dressing gown more securely around herself. “If I sleep too long, I shall never catch up. I will be in my study, if anyone comes looking for me.”

    “I’ll be sure to misdirect them,” Kynan said. “So you can catch up on all that work.”

    Cassandra hid a twitch of a smile, and arched one eyebrow instead. “I’m sure I misheard you,” she said, but did not tell him not to. She could imagine what piles of work were waiting for her. Repair jobs or architectural plans that needed to be cleared by the Lady of the city before work could begin; petitions for changes to rent prices or suits brought against an unfair landlord or some pesky neighbor or for some inane happenstance she couldn’t begin to imagine. Pay scales and union disputes from the lumber yards and the miners, since none of the heads of the minor noble houses were in Whitestone to handle those like they should be (though of course she couldn’t hold that against Percival and Vex’ahlia). And surely more beyond that, as J.B. did the steady work of cataloguing the library and sending her updates whenever she found something missing, or something left behind from before...

    Cassandra kept her sigh inside, and turned towards the stairs. Two of the guards at the door, as usual, broke off and fell into step behind her. If nothing else, it was time for work now - quiet nights and days with the soft echo of armor clanking behind her was the pattern of Cassandra’s life. 

* * *

Chod - or Lionel, Tary was beginning to come around to Lionel - was a good traveling companion. He didn’t complain much, though he did keep trying to converse, but that was an easy enough need to fulfil. Tary could talk about almost anything, and Lionel was more tolerant than most of his urge to talk about himself and his book. 

He almost missed it, when the necklace started pulsing. 

Taryon’s step faltered, and Lionel turned to look back at him only after a few seconds. 

“Oh, did you get a stone in your shoe or something?” Lionel asked. “That’s really terrible, although it doesn’t happen as often up here as often as you get sand in your shoes back home. Sand is the worst sometimes, even though it’s really soft and warm-”

“No, it’s not a stone!” Taryon found his voice. He nearly tore open his shirt to get the necklace out, and when he pulled it into view the dragon tooth was vibrating intensely enough that he could have cut his hand if he’d been holding it any tighter. A faint pulse of red light blinked intermittently, matching the pace of the vibration. 

“What is that?” Lionel asked curiously.

“One of them’s unconscious,” Tary said in horror. One wasn’t terrible - but unconscious, already? What kind of foes had they come up against?

“One of who?”

“Vox Machina!”

“Isn’t that Aes’ new group?”

“What? I - maybe?”

“Are we going back to Whitestone?”

Taryon hesitated. He dearly wanted to, now - but Vox Machina weren’t even there anymore. He couldn’t do anything to aid them now, with no way to follow where they’d gone. But how could he blithely continue on, knowing they were in enough danger to knock them out? Vax had knocked  _ him  _ out in one blow. Had they encountered something that dangerous to them?

Tary tightened his grip on the pendant when the pulse of the light doubled. Someone  _ else-? _

“Are you okay?” Lionel said.

“We have to go back,” Taryon choked out. He didn’t know what he could possibly do, but he couldn’t do nothing. 

“Okay,” Lionel said, gods bless him. “Let’s go.”

* * *

A minute after they turned around, one of the pulses on the necklace stopped. A second later, so did the other one. Tary kept his eye on it as best he could, while still moving as fast as possible towards Whitestone.

Once, only a little after it stopped flashing, he thought he saw a spark of red. But when he looked down, quickly enough that his neck cracked, the pendant was only sitting unremarkably on his chest. 

“Did it go off again?” Lionel asked.

“No,” Tary said, “No, it was only a trick of the light.” He hoped to the gods it was a trick of the light. The vibration, which he’d barely felt, was only the frantic drumming of his heart. 

* * *

“Something’s wrong,” Tary panted. He’d run all the way up through the castle to half collapse through the doorway to Cassandra’s office, out of breath and thoroughly exhausted from all the walking he’d condensed into only a few hours. Cassandra’s face, in the candlelight, looked about as shocked as he figured was warranted. The two guards, one outside the door and one inside with her, had reflexively reached for their weapons. “They’re in trouble.”

“Taryon,” Cassandra said, too surprised to even stand up. “What - how do you know?” 

“The necklace,” Tary wheezed. Cassandra’s eyes widened. “It vibrates whenever someone’s unconscious. It was doing it earlier. A  _ lot,  _ earlier.”

“But not now?” Cassandra’s knuckles paled as her grip tightened on her quill. “What does it mean, that it’s stopped? Are they dead or revived?”

“I don’t know,” Tary said. “There’s no way to know until they get back. Please - there  _ must  _ be a way we can find out.”

“There’s no safe way through the siphon without one of those necklaces,” Cassandra said, “and they all took one. We can’t follow them.”

“Then someone who knows Sending? Or Message?”

“I don’t know,” Cassandra said. “Not at this hour. I could send for someone in the morning-”

“In the  _ morning?” _

“I am doing my best!” Cassandra shouted, and the paper she was holding tore clean in half. 

“Of course,” Tary said, after a solid three seconds of dead silence had passed between them. He took a second more to gather himself, and gather his breath, ducked his head in a parody of a bow, and made his exit. 

Kynan came running up a second later, one of the Riflemen half a second behind him. Trish, who was standing watch inside the room, finally took her hand off her sword.

“Should I have detained Taryon?” Kynan asked. “Also, Taryon’s back.”

“No.” Cassandra did not slam her papers down onto her desk, but did put them down very firmly. 

“Has something happened?”

Cassandra took in a breath, and got up to go stand at the window. Looking out over the courtyard. Keeping her voice even, she said,

“We cannot expect Vox Machina to return unharmed. Nor can we expect that the threat they have left to face has been dealt with.”

She heard Kynan suck in a breath of his own. “Shall I set the Riflemen to patrol?”

“Do.” Cassandra stared down into the courtyard as Kynan muttered a few words to the woman - Marlena, Cassandra thought her name was - who had accompanied him. The courtyard seemed so small, from the third floor of the castle. It was dusty and full of wavering shadows, lit with intermittent torchlight. She could see guards conversing by the gate, the stablemaster and his apprentice grooming a few of the horses below. Across the yard, a servant scattered feed in front of the dovecote. 

How could she protect this with only walls, and people who always seemed so fragile underneath their armor? It seemed impossible sometimes that a single hit would not cave in the broad breastplates of the guards, that the rifles would not explode in their wielders’ hands, that the gate would not rust to ruin overnight. A castle could be taken so easily with only a few well-placed words. How could it stand against the power of a would-be god?

“Could you give us a moment?” Kynan said.

“That’s not your call,” Trish scoffed.

“Leave us,” Cassandra said. She could feel the skeptical look Trish levered at her, but did not return it. Chainmail clattered gently as Trish left, the door shutting a touch too loudly behind her.

“Is this Vecna?” Kynan asked. Cassandra closed her eyes briefly, and was glad she’d sent Trish away. That was one name she didn’t want bandied about loosely, and Trish patronized the bars in town far too often for Cassandra’s taste. “Vax didn’t say, but I’ve heard some things.”

“The servants here,” Cassandra said, “talk too freely.”

“It was Jarrett, actually. He said J.B. told him.” 

Cassandra pursed her lips. She didn’t like that information had gotten around, but Jarrett was Jarrett. If he wasn’t trustworthy, who was?

....That  _ was  _ the question, wasn’t it.

“Is it?” Kynan asked again.

“As far as I know,” Cassandra said. “But I know little else.” Except that Delilah Briarwood was the chief lieutenant of the lich. A sick feeling curdled in her gut. Cassandra stood straighter. 

“Can’t we contact them?”

“Not at this hour,” Cassandra said. Kynan did not need to explain who ‘them’ was. “Keeper Yennen, I believe, knows how to cast Sending. Have him here in the morning, as early as is reasonable for a man of his age.”

“Nine o’clock?”

Cassandra considered how long it would take someone to get to the temple of Erathis, wake Yennen, wait for him to ready himself for an audience with her, and then escort him back up to the castle. “Tell him I’m expecting him at eight,” she said.

“Sure. My lady,” Kynan added. He was still terrible at remembering to address her formally. Tonight was one such night where it was irritating rather than a reminder that he was, after all, only human. 

“That is all,” Cassandra said pointedly, when Kynan showed no sign of wanting to leave. “Tell Trish she may come back in, on your way out.” 

“...Yes, my lady.”

* * *

“Of course, I can cast Sending.” Keeper Yennen nodded. Tary wasn’t sure if it was a sign of agreement, or if he was nodding off. He’d been yawning all the way up to the castle, according to Kynan. “Who am I meant to send it to?”

“Percival,” Cassandra said, at the same time that Tary said,

“Vex, please.”

“...Of course, my lady,” Keeper Yennen said, peering at the two of them with an air of confusion. “But, if I may, Percival is...abroad, is he not? There is a chance the spell might not work.”

“And if it does, which I have been told is far more likely, he will be able to respond to your message, won’t he?” Cassandra asked.

“Well, yes.”

“Then send it, please.”

“What shall I say?”

“Ask if they’re alright,” Tary broke in. Cassandra sent him a sharp look, but he barely noticed it. 

“Anything else, Lady Cassandra?” Keeper Yennen was already reaching up to grasp at the holy pendant around his neck. 

“I want to know where they are, and when they intend to return,” Cassandra said. “I know the spell has its limits. Work around them.”

“I will do my best.” Keeper Yennen’s gaze became distant, as he moved his fingers in wavering but well-practiced patterns. Cassandra’s gaze was laser-focused on him, and one hand curled into a loose fist. Tary touched his chest, where the pendant hung under his shirt, and realized he’d buttoned his shirt crookedly. He must have gotten dressed a little too hastily - no wonder Cassandra had given him such a look when he’d shown up to her conversation with Keeper Yennen. 

Keeper Yennen made a small, startled noise.

“What is it?” Cassandra demanded immediately.

“Pardon me,” Keeper Yennen said. He was holding his pendant tighter than a moment ago. “I - the spell. It hasn’t sent.”

“What for?” Tary was hardly aware of how tightly he’d grasped his own necklace. 

“It - it just hasn’t.”

“But there  _ was  _ a chance that might happen, regardless of where Percival is,” Cassandra said. 

“Yes...but my lady should keep in mind-”

“You are dismissed, Keeper Yennen,” Cassandra interrupted. The two guards by the door roused their attentions, noticing that the conversation was over and Cassandra would soon be moving.

“But - hold on!” Tary stood before Keeper Yennen could. “You can cast it again, can’t you?”

“Not today, I’m afraid.” Keeper Yennen did not seem surprised by Cassandra’s attitude. “Tomorrow, or after a rest - if it works.”

“Then let’s try again tomorrow! Cassandra, you must-”

_ “Must  _ I?” Cassandra said, frostily enough to give even Tary pause. “I  _ must  _ do nothing. My brother has left enough on my plate without making me worry over why a spell that was entirely likely to fail has failed.” She stood, knocking her chair back carelessly. “You are both excused. I am quite busy enough as it is; I have nothing more I need from either of you.”

Keeper Yennen laid a hand on Tary’s shoulder, and kept him from starting forward as Cassandra swept out, the pair of guards in step behind her. “Don’t take her words to heart too terribly,” he said. “I’m sure she’s as worried as you are; she simply doesn’t like to show it.”

“She could stand to,” Tary huffed. He shook off the hand, finding no comfort in what was meant to be a comforting gesture. “I should go.” He needed to do  _ something  _ productive, and Doty still needed repairs.

* * *

“Are there any other people who can Scry in the city?”

“Not that I know of, my lady,” Trish said, jolted out of her thoughts by the sudden question. Cassandra was brooding over her desk, hands steepled, fingertips pressed against her lips.

“But there could be someone you don’t know of.”

“It’s entirely possible.”

“Have someone find out,” Cassandra said. “If there’s anyone in Whitestone who  _ can  _ Scry, I want them here by tonight.”

“Of course, my lady.”

Outside, it had begun to snow gently. 

* * *

Doty’s state of disrepair did not change much, over the course of the next twenty four hours. Tary hammered away until he’d hammered the sheet of metal he was working on into oblivion, or flattened a needed part. He had no patience to chisel runes and weave enchantments, and gave up in a fit of disgust late in the evening. 

Sleep came only fitfully to him that night. He was plagued with the questions of what  _ other  _ reasons there might be for the spell to have failed to make its way to Percy; questions of who had gone unconscious; questions of whether the quieting of the pendant meant victory and a respite for healing, or worse. He rose with the sun, on the wrong side of the bed; luckily when he slouched into the library to look for information on Vox Machina’s foe, J.B. wasn’t there to bear the brunt of his bad mood. 

Information on Vecna was sparse and unhelpful, both for learning and for Tary’s attitude. Tary had half given up and was dozing in a chair, without realizing that he was dozing, when Pike’s voice flashed into his head.

_ Hi Tary, we’re all alive. Vex says love you, and to say that we’re all okay for the time being. Don’t worry. See you soon.  _

Tary bolted upright as soon as he realized what he was hearing, and listened, breathless, until ‘alive’. He scrambled out of his chair through ‘love you’, and was bolting down the hallway before Pike could get to her reassurance not to worry. By the time he skidded to a halt, again, in the doorway of Cassandra’s study, ‘soon’ was fading from his ears and Cassandra was frowning up at him.

“They’re alive!” Tary crowed. 

* * *

Snow fell thicker that night, and cooled the stone passages of the castle even further. It would have been unseasonable for anywhere except Whitestone. Cassandra, long used to the way winter weather lingered into the beginning of spring, barely noticed it except for the faintly damp tracks the guards left if they’d been outside recently.

But in her room, at night, there were no guards. Oh, there were a pair outside her door as always, and however many else were in the Keep at the moment, but no more than that. She needed privacy somewhere. A constant shadow was good for safety, but she couldn’t stand it all day.

Besides, none of the guards needed to see her like this. Hair down, half undressed - hardly the picture of the lady of Whitestone. Even the streaks and hints of grey in her hair, and the prominent de Rolo nose, couldn’t make Cassandra look noble or like someone worth respecting when she was in her dressing gown.

Cassandra turned away from her mirror, meaning to get up and go to bed, but her eyes caught on a small book resting on the corner of the table. She’d put it there days ago and, with no time to read, forgot about it. 

Maybe....well, she’d already made up her mind to stop working for the night, and she’d stayed up til later hours before. It wasn’t a very long book at all.

Cassandra hesitated, tapping her fingers on the table. It was a silly novel, bound with string and not leather like the books that had been sitting on shelves in the library for longer than she’d been alive. J.B. had given it to her and told her it was historical fiction. 

There was a flash of something green in her mirror. Cassandra looked sharply at it, and her breath froze in her lungs.

There - behind her - she must have teleported into the room-

Delilah smiled, slow and smug, and placed one finger over her lips.

“Guards!” It would have been a strangled word, hurling itself from Cassandra’s tight throat, but it made no noise at all. One of the mages behind Delilah was lowering his hands, casting some spell too quickly for Cassandra to see. Cassandra dropped the book, and it hit the cold stone floor silently.

Delilah was getting  _ closer. _

Cassandra opened a drawer, silently, eyes glued to Delilah’s reflection. She’d killed Delilah once before. Her hand wrapped around the cold hilt of the dagger. 

Delilah was very close.

Cassandra spun and lunged. She barely processed the hiss of sound over the beating of her own heart.

The dagger stopped an inch away from Delilah’s heart. Cassandra hung in the air, mid-lunge, caught by the force of the spell. The mage in dark robes was lowering his hand again, a small piece of iron in his hand. 

“You always were so daring,” Delilah cooed. The mage handed her a black metal circlet, and she lifted it over Cassandra’s head, like a mockery of a coronation. “Now, stay still, sweet girl.” Cassandra’s stomach roiled.

Cool iron slipped into place around her head.

* * *

Tary slept well that night, no longer half sick with worry, and woke up well towards the afternoon. The upper floors of the castle were bustling already, the footsteps of servants and guards tapping along the halls as they made their rounds. It sounded like it was going to be an energetic day - not a single quiet lull reached Tary’s ears. Eventually, he gave up on staying asleep and straggled out of bed, pulling on a robe and peeping out the door to see what Whitestone was up to now.

There  _ were  _ a lot of guards about - an awful lot of them, actually, compared to the usual number stationed in the castle itself. Tary spotted Kynan striding down the corridor, looking harried.

“Has something happened?” Tary asked, leaning out further to catch Kynan before he could pass by. Kynan’s expression, if possible, got stonier.

“Nobody can find Lady Cassandra,” he said.

“Oh,” Tary said, with an awful feeling in his plummeting stomach. “Oh, no.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ehehehuehehue


	2. the show must go on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, i SHOULD have waited for at least tomorrow, but I'm way too excited to share all this with you guys! I'm really proud of some of the stuff I wrote in this chapter.

    Tary was dressed and out into the halls faster than the time it had taken for him to convince himself to get out from under the blankets. It wasn’t hard to find Kynan again - he was at the center of an anxious knot of Pale Guard in the great hall, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Tary said, inserting himself into the group. Kynan fell back to make way with the faintest sigh of relief. “What do you mean, nobody can find Cassandra?”

“She wasn’t in her room this morning,” Trish said. There was a stormcloud of a scowl settled onto her face. “The guards outside didn’t see or hear anything, and there’s no sign that the window was broken.”

“Could it have been opened by magic?”

“I sent for Keeper Yennen already. He knows Detect Magic.”

“That won’t work,” Tary said, “Detect Magic only finds traces of  _ active  _ magic. I’ll look to see if there’s a trace of past magic anywhere.” His thoughts caught up to his words, and he asked, “Why not send for Kaylie? Surely she knows Detect Magic.”

“I...hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, someone go see if she does know it.” Despite his much-practiced authoritative tone, a part of Tary was still surprised when one of the guards broke off to hurry out of the room. He turned to Kynan instead. “What do we  _ know?” _

“Someone must have broken in using magic,” Kynan said. “Someone who knew specifically where Lady Cassandra’s room was. Nobody invisible could have entered the Keep through the doors or past the guards, not without being forced to reveal themselves one way or another.”

“What he means is,” Trish said, “either whoever did it had enough power to bypass  _ all the protective wards  _ preventing teleportation around the Keep, or we were betrayed.” 

There was an awkward shifting among the gathered guards. Tary became abruptly hyperaware of how many guards regularly patrolled Whitestone castle's halls, how many were armed, how many took their breaks in the city proper. He remembered when he’d first heard of Percy and Cassandra’s  _ other  _ siblings, of their parents, of the Briarwoods.

If this was a betrayal, this was far worse than just Cassandra vanishing.

“No one leaves this castle,” Tary said. Kynan straightened; Trish’s thundercloud expression did not ease. “Kynan - do you trust your men?”

Kynan hesitated, unease crossing his face. “I’m not sure I can be the judge of that.”

“Fine, did  _ you  _ let anybody into the castle to abduct Cassandra?”

“What? No!”

“Then you may be the judge of your men!” Tary snapped. “If you say that none of them would have betrayed, then I will believe you, but I need your word to trust your word! I do not have time for your moral self-judgements!”

Kynan stared at him. “No,” he said, “they wouldn’t have. But if enchantments are in the equation...”

Right. Magic. “You are responsible for your men,” Tary said. “Trish - you too.”

“I don’t know every Pale Guard personally,” Trish objected.

“Then find me someone who does!” Tary pinched the bridge of his nose. His stress headache was returning. “Find me Jarett, I don’t care, but I want every man or woman or other in this castle to have a solid alibi and three reputable references to their character. Whoever the head of the household staff is, tell them that and tell them they report to me once they’ve verified the same of all the maids and servants and whatnot.”

“We can’t keep track of everyone in the castle with just three,” Kynan said.

“Then find deputies you trust." 

“We can’t keep everyone inside,” Trish said. “There are servant’s entrances-”

“Then post guards at those entrances and close the gate,” Tary said. “If anyone tries to leave, I want to damn well know why. No one else should be gone.”

The guard who had left earlier skidded back into the room. “Shorthalt’s not in her room,” he said, panting.

“Godsdamnit,” said Tary, feeling his headache worsen. 

* * *

Lionel was lurking outside, when Tary finally finished sorting out who was doing what and establishing who could be relied upon. Even as he left the great hall behind everyone else, he felt doubt. Was it right to unquestionably trust that Trish and Kynan were not traitors? That they could be trusted to complete their duties or pick the right people to assist them in finding a potential traitor?

And then there was still the question of  _ if  _ there was a traitor. If one only needed enough power to bypass the castle’s protections, could Vecna have...?

“Hey,” Lionel said. Tary startled, nearly jumping out of his shoes, and finally noticed him. “Is everything okay? People are saying the important lady is gone.”

“Not gone, missing,” Tary said crossly. “Everything’s gone to shit, you know. I have no idea what’s happening.”

“You sounded like you knew what you were doing,” Lionel said.

“Oh, good. Now people will  _ expect  _ things from me.” Tary had assigned himself the duty of checking for traces of magic. He wasn’t sure what he’d do once that was done. What if he found something? What if he didn’t?

“Do you want me to ask the ducks if they know anything?”

“Th - the ducks?”

“Yeah,” Lionel said, oblivious to the incredulity in Tary’s stare. “They’re surprisingly knowledgeable about a lot of things. Maybe they saw something.”

Fuck it, Tary thought. “Why not? Show me the way to the ducks. After I finish this one thing.”

* * *

Even with Cassandra absent, it felt like trespassing to enter her rooms. Tary eased the door open, peeking inside as if to check that no one else was already inside, even though he knew it was absurd. 

It was as cold and grey inside as the sky outside the window. No one had bothered to light the room’s lamps yet. Cassandra kept a rich carpet on the floor, but all it seemed to do was muffle Tary’s footsteps as he stepped inside. 

“Wait outside and tell me if anyone comes,” Tary told Lionel. “Don’t attack them - just let me know.”

“Okay.” Lionel slouched against the wall next to the door, picking at one fingernail. Tary propped the door open, and surveyed the room.

Cassandra’s quarters were on the top floor of the Keep, at the heart of the castle and bordered by the original castle’s curtain wall. The carpet was a deep blue to match the curtains on her four-poster bed, which stood opposite the door against the far wall. Two skinny windows, barely as wide as the slimmest humanoid, were on either side of the bed. There was a bureau table with an arrangement of shelves and a mirror to form a vanity set, a proper desk with a chair and perfectly clean top, a set of shelves full of books and a large chest on the bottom shelf, and a wardrobe. 

The feather only caught Tary’s eye because it was such a stark contrast. Next to the bureau table’s little stool, it made a bright spot of white on the carpet. It took coming very close for him to realize it was a feather at all. 

Tary crouched down, looked at the feather, then looked up. It was underneath the desk, but not quite directly underneath any of the drawers. He opened the ones on either side, and scattered four more feathers; the middle drawer dropped none, and had a dagger inside - out of its sheath. 

Tary picked it up and turned it over in his hand. It was a small dagger, almost a dirk, pearl-handled. Very much a polite lady’s knife. There was no blood on it.

Sighing, Tary put it back in the drawer as it was and went over to check the windows. They were locked, like Trish had said; not with a latch but with lead that had been poured into the gap between glass and stone and left to cool. Cassandra couldn’t have opened them if she wanted to. There was stained glass, oddly enough, in the upper third of each window; Cassandra had a good view of the courtyard as well as a bit of beauty. Tary couldn’t make out what pattern the colored panes formed. It was probably another de Rolo secret. 

On a whim, Tary spun a coin in his hand and cast Detect Magic. No enchantment revealed itself, at least not any that could have been used for kidnapping; the windows, however, were imbued with spells to ward against breaking. And they overlooked the inner courtyard from the fourth floor; who in the world could have gotten in that way unseen? Some kind of creature? Not any Tary knew off the top of his head.

“Someone’s coming,” Lionel called. Tary spun around just as a Pale Guard strode into the room. They had a face he vaguely recognized.

“Jarett sent me,” they said. “I’m to keep an eye on you.”

“Oh, really? Who are you?”

“I’m Rory, sir.”

Tary grumbled internally, but it was probably fair of Jarett to have him in the company of someone who didn’t work for him. Just to allay everyone else’s suspicions. Tary turned back to the window and pulled a vial out of his pocket. 

“What’s that?”

“It’s to help me see what magic was cast in this room recently,” Tary said, “If any. I do require quiet to work, if you don’t mind, so-”

“What about this? Is this magical?”

Tary turned around. Rory had bent over to look at something on the floor, near one of the corners adjacent to the door. Tary had bypassed it completely, but on the floor was a strange mark, almost like it had been scorched. 

“Let me see.” Tary stepped over swiftly, and bent down. Carefully, he uncorked the vial and shook out the tiniest bit of shimmering powder from within. It settled down on the black mark, and began to shine strongly.

“What does that mean?” Rory asked.

“It means it’s magical.” Tary corked the vial and brushed the excess powder away. The mark glowed strongly. “It must have happened within the last day or so, or else it’d be fainter. And...” Tary licked where some of the powder had stuck to the side of his hand.

“Gross,” Rory said.

“Conjuration,” Tary said. “This is a mark from some kind of conjuration spell. Teleportation belongs to that school, doesn’t it?”

Rory thought for a moment. “I don’t know what other school it could be.” 

“Someone  _ did  _ teleport in,” Tary said. “Aren’t there enchantments against that?” He could still see them at the edges of his vision, light leaking in from the outside of the stones that formed the walls of the Keep. It stung his eyes like Abjuration. 

“Nobody should be able to magic themselves inside in any way,” Rory said. “Whoever did this was very powerful, or else let inside.”

“Who guards the Keep?”

“Jarett’s already gathered everyone who was on duty here and on the gate last night.”

Tary nodded absently. That was a good move, and Jarett was trustworthy in any situation. “We should go find him.”

“I’ll be happy to escort you, sir.”

“...Sure. Go ahead. I have to talk to some ducks first, though.”

“You what?”

* * *

The ducks yielded no good answers. Lionel twisted his hands nervously as he stuck like glue to Tary’s side, following like - ha - a duckling as Tary followed Rory to the castle’s barracks. Jarett was directing guards, and they were streaming off at his word; those who remained, Tary noticed, were shifting nervously and stealing glances at the sky. Even the guards who left were moving warily, hands gripping their swords or spears. 

“Ah, good,” Jarett said as Tary approached. “Rory found you. What was in Cassandra’s room?”

“Marks of magic,” Tary said. “Someone definitely teleported in.”

Jarett’s face grew grimmer. “Past the wards?”

“Somehow, yes. The wards can’t be taken down, can they?”

“The wards are built into the walls,” Jarett said. “So Whitestone’s history says. The Keep is meant to be the most easily defensible part of the castle. But if someone was let in through the door, why teleport up into her room?”

“To avoid other guards who weren’t in on it?” Rory suggested. The guards standing nearby shuffled nervously and cast suspicious looks at each other. 

Tary looked around, and realized what was off about the situation. “Where’s Kynan?” He asked.

“Being unhelpful somewhere else,” Jarett said. “I sent him to go look in Kaylie’s room, see what had happened there, but there was nothing.”

“DId he say anything about a black mark on the floor?”

“A black mark? How did you kn-” Jarett stopped himself, expression sobering. “The mark of teleportation?”

“Don’t tell me,” Tary said, feeling his headache pound. “Kaylie’s gone, too.  _ Gone- _ gone.”

“If there was a black mark like the one you saw.”

Tary sighed. “Someone point me to Kaylie’s room.” This day could not get any worse.

* * *

The pall over Whitestone remained until well past sunset, when the darkness that fell close and black around the castle was barely any better. The torches and candles were nearly burned to stubs by the time Tary had the chance to escape for a moment of rest. When he finally did manage to closet himself away in his room, away from Lionel and Jarett and every damn over-suspicious guard, his head felt as though someone were driving Cassandra’s delicate little dirk through his eyeballs. 

He couldn’t begin to understand how Cassandra managed to be so stiff and polished all the time. Appealing to people’s reason never seemed to work, despite the fact that logically, all people were reasonable people. It didn’t make sense that reason would be the first mental faculty to flee the mind in a crisis. It was the  _ most  _ important tool to use in solving a crisis.

But then again, reason hadn’t helped him uncover where Cassandra had gone. Tary rubbed one hand over his face, beginning to really feel the weight of what had happened. He wasn’t sure anyone, least of all him, really knew what to do without Cassandra’s steel will grounding the castle. The bricks might as well have started falling out of the walls. 

And Cassandra was only a girl, really. Who had even put her in charge of a city? Surely girls needed...other things. Frivolous things. Maryanne had plenty of those, but also responsibility. Definitely not the responsibility of a whole city, though, and she was older than Cassandra by almost a decade. 

Tary heard a clamor in the distance, and sighed. He gave himself three seconds, then got up to see what fresh disaster was being inflicted on him.

* * *

Gilmore had to tell them what had happened. Kaylie and Cassandra were in no condition to, not yet. He apologized, first, for causing such a fuss - he hadn’t realized he couldn’t teleport straight into the castle. 

Tary told him he didn’t need to worry about doing anything wrong. It seemed like the least he could say, in the face of...everything.

* * *

Vox Machina returned the night after Cassandra did; bedraggled, grim, and numbering six.

“Where’s Vax?” Tary asked, dread sinking his heart down into his stomach. Keyleth burst into tears. 

* * *

It seemed like only the blink of an eye had passed before Vox Machina were gone again, haring off on some new quest. Only Grog’s insensate body, hauled inside and arrayed as comfortably as possible in his usual room, showed that they had returned at all. 

Tary couldn’t bear to look in on Grog. He’d gotten a glimpse of the goliath’s soulless form as the team brought him inside to lay him somewhere comfortable, and it had thoroughly unsettled him. To see someone like  _ Grog  _ so still and quiet...

Tary needed something to distract him.

Trish and Kynan were standing outside Cassandra’s door, as they had been near-permanently ever since she’d returned. They both looked exhausted, but they looked simultaneously and sharply towards Tary as he rounded the corner. 

“Morning,” Tary said. “Is she up?”

“She demanded someone bring her a lap desk a little while ago,” Trish said gruffly. “Doesn’t want to get behind on things while she’s restricted to bed rest.”

“Is that working for her?”

Trish shrugged. “She hasn’t shouted for something else to do.” 

“I wouldn’t go in if you don’t have anything good to say to her,” Kynan said. 

“I’ll risk it,” Tary said. “She is still in charge, after all.”

Someone had cleaned the black mark of teleportation off the floor, at some point in the last day or so. Tary only noticed because he glanced towards the spot as he entered. Other than that, the room was practically unchanged, except for the lit candles in the lamps.

“Leave the door open,” Cassandra said. She was propped up on a mass of pillows, and sure enough had a portable desk on her lap. Someone had brought in a breakfast tray already, miraculously, but it had not been touched and was lying on the side table. 

Tary propped the door open with a doorstop some knowledgeable soul had left conveniently nearby. “I don’t know why I expected everyone else to still be asleep at this hour,” he said, attempting a joking tone. It fell rather flat. 

“Why are you here so early, then?” Cassandra was making an effort to sound like her normal self, Tary could tell, but the mere fact that the effort was audible undermined it. She was rather paler than usual. After everything that had happened to her, no wonder she was feeling ill. 

“I need something to do,” Tary said. “You’re in charge, Lady Cassandra. What needs to be done?”

Cassandra closed her eyes, briefly. For a second she looked much older than eighteen. “What doesn’t?” She said. “The workings of a city move on with or without its overseers, and if I am not careful it will get beyond my ability to catch up.”

“Then let me help,” Tary offered. “I could do anything - whatever’s most urgent.” He needed  _ something  _ to do, or else he’d just sit in his room all day and be harassed by his own thoughts. 

“...There are many guests in the castle as of now,” Cassandra said at length. “Someone should ensure that they are properly treated. If anyone happens to ask for your help with other matters, feel free to participate. If you must.”

“Many guests?” Tary echoed.

“Kaylie is certainly not a member of the staff, much less of the Chamber. There is Gilmore. There is one Velora Vessar, I’ve been told.”

“Who’s Velora Vessar?”

Cassandra, though confined to her bed, managed to combine polite indignation and surprise into a single expression quite well. “Are you telling me you never learned what Vex’ahlia’s last name was, despite your enduring friendship?”

_ “Vex’ahlia’s -  _ excuse me.”

* * *

Velora Vessar was very young, very elvish, and very asleep. 

Tary closed the door hastily, regretting the noise it made as soon as he did so, when he realized that it was too early to expect her to be awake. 

    A younger sister! He’d never imagined that Vex and Vax had any other siblings. The twins were so close at all times it seemed unimaginable. Tary wondered who Velora’s parents were. Surely if she was fully elvish, as the ears he had glimpsed would indicate, she couldn’t share more than one with the twins.

Was she even old enough to be here by herself? How had she ended up in Vox Machina’s hands? Tary set off to find someone who could tell him what he wanted to know.

Gilmore blinked up at him, still drowsy and looking a bit worn. “Velora’s parents?” He repeated. “Well, er, I believe her father is also Va- Vex’ahlia’s father.”

“Where’s he, then?” Tary prodded. Dawning realization crossed Gilmore’s face. 

“Good gods,” said Gilmore. “He lives in Syngorn. He was in Emon for a while, as an ambassador, but that was years ago. He must be going mad with worry, wondering where she is.”

“You don’t have a spell to tell him where she is, do you?”

“Unfortunately no, no message spells. I can Teleport, but...” Gilmore hesitated. “I would prefer to stay here, for the time being.”

“Of course, of course, no one’s in any hurry for you to leave,” Tary hastened to reassure him. “We can send a letter - I’ll give it over to a speedy messenger. Or better yet one of the pigeons.” He had been delighted to discover that castle Whitestone had a coop full - surely one or two could home in on Syngorn. “You can take your time and recover.”

A smile twitched at the corner of Gilmore’s mouth. “I appreciate the sentiment.” He stood, straightening his loose robe. “I’m going to go search for something to eat in this place. Tell me how it goes, will you?”

“I will.” 

* * *

   ~~_Dear Mr. Vessar_ ~~ _ Dear Sir,  _

__ _ Your daughter _

“Tary, can you come help? The guards listened to you last time.”

“What’s wrong with the guards?” 

“They’re still rattled and suspicious from the Lady’s...er, you know. Just go speak to them and tell them it’s sorted out, we know nobody from inside turned traitor. I’d hate to see anybody get into a brawl over imagined guilt.”

“All right. But call Jarett up from wherever he is and tell him I’d like his help.”

__ __ __ _ is safe, to assure you of that before anything else is said. Or written, rather. You may not be familiar with me yet; my name is Taryon Da _

“Mr. Darrington, would you please retrieve your, er, retainer? His ducks are bothering the pigeons...”

“Oh very  _ well.” _

_                                                                                                                                                                                                              rrington, and I have been a member of Vox Machina alongside your elder children for some time now. Recent troubles have caused _

“Mr. Darrington, Lady Cassandra has sent me to ask for you to take on a couple matters regarding some city affairs-”

“Can a man not have a  _ minute _ of peace?”

“I’m sorry, sir. Lady Cassandra or one of the other Chamber members would normally take care of this, but...”

A long sigh. “Hand it over. When Vex gets back, I’m going to demand a seat in the Chamber...”

_ the family and friends of Vox Machina to come under threat. A now-defeated enemy attempted, I believe, to use Velora as a hostage against them. However, he  _ _ was _ _ defeated, and Velora is currently quite safe in Whitestone.  _

“Hello?”

Tary paused, and turned around. Velora was standing in the doorway, Jarett behind her with one gentle hand on her shoulder. She was clutching a tatty cloth bear, which bewildered Tary. Where had anybody found her a stuffed animal, much less a bear that had certainly been around almost as long as the castle itself?

“She was asking about Vox Machina,” Jarett said, by way of explanation. Velora rubbed her eyes. 

“I was asking about my brother and sister,” she corrected him irritably. Jarett stared pleadingly at Tary.

“Ah,” Tary said into the silence that followed. “Well, your brother and sister aren’t here right now. I’m afraid it’s just me. I was writing a letter to your father to let him know where you were - Syldor, right? - if you’d like me to tell him anything for you.”

Velora padded across the room and hoisted herself into his lap, peering at the half-finished letter. Tary let it happen, frozen in inexperienced terror. How fragile  _ were _ children? How old was Velora, even? It was impossible to tell with elves. 

“Ah, ah, wait,” Tary interrupted, when Velora reached for his quill. “I’ll do the writing, thank you. What do you want to say?”

“I want to tell him that I’m okay.”

“I’ve said that already.”

“But it will be in  _ my  _ handwriting.”

Tary sighed. “You can add a postscript when I’m done, how about that?”

“What else are you going to write? Are you going to tell him what happened?” There was an odd note in Velora’s voice.

“I’ve written pretty much everything I know.” It was, unfortunately, the truth. Tary abhorred short letters, but he didn’t have many options. He knew very little, and this Syldor was a stranger to him. He could hardly start a new paragraph and ask after Syldor’s garden, or how his sister was doing. Syldor probably didn’t have a sister. Tary picked up his quill.

_ You are welcome in Whitestone at your earliest convenience. Though recent events have somewhat strained the castle’s resources and it would please Lady de Rolo if you would send advance notice of your arrival, we will be able to accomodate you for as long as it may take to assure yourself of your daughter’s safety and return home with her.  _

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ _ Regards,  _

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ _ Taryon Darrington  _

_                             Vox Machina _

Velora took the quill with a childish effort at a dignified nod, and scrawled a note in Elvish at the bottom, with several more splatters of ink than had decorated Tary’s writing. 

Tary let her pour the little spoonful of melted wax over the edges of the parchment, once he had rolled the letter up and melted some wax, and then handed her the sealing stamp he had borrowed from Cassandra. It wasn’t Cassandra’s personal seal, just the all-purpose Whitestone one that bore the simplified crest; a bare tree with stars haloing its branches. 

Velora slid off his lap when he pushed her, but she didn’t leave. She fidgeted with one of the bear’s paws. Tary noticed that she’d gotten a spot of ink on the thing’s muzzle.

“Do you think my dad will come soon?” She asked timidly. 

“I’m sure he’ll be here as soon as he gets the letter,” Tary assured her. 

“How fast will it get there?”

“Oh,  _ very _ fast,” Jarett said before Tary had to make up an answer. “Why don’t I take you down to the yard, and you can watch the messenger pigeon go off with it?” He took the letter, simply nodding in response to Tary’s grateful look, and gently tugged Velora out the door to escort her down to the yard. 

Tary waited a moment, tapping one foot, then crossed to the window. After a moment, he saw Jarett and Velora emerge into the courtyard and make their way over to the pigeons. A maid was scattering feed around the coop, and several were already pecking at it enthusiastically. Velora was convinced to let go of the bear in order to let a pigeon perch on her wrist so Jarett could tie the letter to it. Tary couldn’t tell from such a distance if she enjoyed it. 

He hoped Syldor arrived soon. Whitestone did not seem to Tary like a place for children.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Velora. I have a feeling that no matter what, she's got a rough time ahead of her in her life.


	3. Siblings and Business

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene with Cassandra and Percy, near the beginning of this chapter, was one of the hardest scenes I've ever written. It's really interesting to write from her POV, because Cassandra has so much going on in her head, ALL the time, that needs to be contextualized.

    Vox Machina returned before Syldor came, but then again, it was a long way to Syngorn even as the crow flies. Or pigeon. 

Grog saw them first, as he was the subject of their errand, and the guards could only fetch Tary so quickly. He took a moment outside the room to let his breathing even out, having raced down the grand staircase, and then waited a moment longer for the arguing to die down before he went in.

There were still only six of them. Tary tried not to let his disappointment show on his face. They all looked tired, except for Grog, and had tracked dust in everywhere. Vex turned to face him, and brown grit cascaded from the folds of her cloak.

“Tary,” she said, and she did sound glad to see him, underneath the weight of everything else. “I expected Cassandra to be here first.”

“Cassandra is - good gods!” It had taken Tary too long to spot Percy, the way the younger man was slumped in an armchair and half turned away from him. Under the dust there was blood all down his side, and his right sleeve was pinned up in a foreboding way under all the bandages. 

Percy grimaced. He may have meant to smile. Tary was too shocked to tell. “There was some trouble,” he said. He was pale as ever, but at least didn’t seem to be actively bleeding out. “Cassandra is, what?”

Tary fished for the right words for just long enough that the lines on Percy’s face deepened. “Fine,” Tary said at length, “for a given definition of the word. After Gilmore brought her and Kaylie back here, she wasn’t in a fit state to do much of anything, not that that stopped her. But - well, if I was back home, my mother would say she was sick with nerves.”

“She’s sick?” Vex questioned sharply.

“Keeper Yennen’s confined her to bed rest, which she hates, so the rest of us suffer for it. It’s not helping, but letting her get up and try and run an entire city would be worse.”

“Who’s in charge of Whitestone, if Cassandra’s not doing it?” Scanlan scoffed. Tary stared at him with three sleepless nights’ worth of bags under his eyes until Scanlan muttered “oh” and looked away. 

“At least you two are back,” Tary said, looking back to Percy and Vex. “That’s some weight off my shoulders.” Vex gained a hunted expression; Percy just continued to look tired. 

“I could see to Cassandra,” Pike spoke up. She was perched on top of Grog, ready either to hug him or hit him. Tary couldn’t tell. “It might help.”

“If you can convince her to let you doctor her, maybe,” Tary sighed. “Keeper Yennen hasn’t had much luck, and neither has anyone else.” 

“I’ll speak with her,” Percy said, very quietly. Vex, for some reason, looked guilty all of the sudden. Percy made no attempt to get up out of his chair. 

“Well,” Tary said, wondering what had happened while they were gone, “no one’s going to stop you.”

* * *

It was too cold in her room, but that was how it was in Whitestone. The cold got into everything, and was probably well at home in the depths of the flagstones. It had been built in along with all the mortar and the tiles and the tiniest paving-stones in the courtyard. Cassandra shivered, and pulled her blanket tighter around herself, since no one was there to watch.

She could not bear to have anybody watch her every single hour of the day, not even Trish or Kynan, and yet she dreaded what would happen if their eye turned away. There had been a guard outside her door and Delilah had still come. 

She shivered, but i was not from the cold. 

The noise of boots on the stair did not rouse her - she was nowhere close to asleep - but it made her attention sharpen to a razor point. Cassandra lay frozen, listening attentively, only relaxing a little when Trish greeted the interloper.

“You’re up late. My lord,” Trish added belatedly, and Cassandra tensed again. Percival’s muttered response was too quiet to make out through the thick oak door. 

The door opened, and Percival stepped in. For a moment, in the backlighting of the torches in the hallway, Cassandra thought he had his arm behind his back. But when he came closer to her side, cold moonlight fell across him from the window.

“You look terrible,” Cassandra said.

Percival smiled wanly. “I could say the same to you.” Cassandra glared at him, but Percy kept talking. “She’s dead. Her master is dead. No more secret second chances.”

Cassandra flinched, and hated herself for it. She did not need to ask who ‘she’ was. Percival sat on the edge of the bed, not commenting on the way she’d rumpled the blankets trying to pull them close to keep away the cold. Under the sheets she was teetering back and forth between being sweaty and freezing. 

Percival was in his nightclothes. That seemed oddly significant. The light, white fabric of his shirt pinned up under the stump of his arm was so thin it made him as a whole look fragile, even with broad shoulders and the general sturdiness that came from a lifetime of adventuring. And there was tiredness worn into the lines of his face in a way that Cassandra saw too often in the mirror.

She disliked seeing it on her brother. It was too much like the mirror. 

“Alright,” Cassandra said, “you’ve delivered your news. You may go, now.” She was very conscious of the door, still half open, a condition she’d insisted upon for everyone who came to see her. Kynan and the night guard, Rhys, stood attendant outside. 

Percival looked at her for a long moment. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice gravely in the way it got when he was being earnest. “I should have expected that Vecna would play dirty. I should have warned you.” 

Irritation welled up. “Yes, how dare you not be here to protect me,” she snapped. She felt all sweaty again, as if Percival’s presence had turned up the temperature, or maybe a chill was sneaking in to turn her sweat to ice. 

“I  _ do  _ dare,” Percival said. “Cassandra, you were -”

_ “Don’t.” _ Percival actually snapped his mouth shut. Cassandra’s heart thundered in her ears. “I don’t want to hear one word-”

“And what if I never get a chance to say it again?” Percy interrupted. “Too much has been taken from me for me to let this go. You are  _ here,  _ and I don’t think-” His right arm twitched, like he meant to reach out, and the failure of his missing right hand to reach anything brought him up short. 

“Percival-”

Astonishingly, he seized her hand in his own. Cassandra stared, rendered mute by surprise.

“Let me speak,” he said, a terrible urgency in his voice. “If Pike had not had the right spells - but it shouldn’t have come to that. You shouldn’t have been there, dragged into all this, and if I had come back and found I needed to answer for your absence-”

Cassandra yanked her hand away and slapped him.

“I was  _ dragged _ into this the moment the Briarwoods came here!” She was shaking, and Cassandra told herself it was from anger. Percival was reeling from the blow, his cheek pinking. “Dragged into it like they dragged me back into the castle! Dragged into it the moment you returned! Do not come in here and cry at me about what-ifs! Is that what Whitestone needs? Is that what you would have done after that arrow found its mark?”

“Cass,” Percival said stupidly, and that hit surer than any arrow.

_ “Cassandra,”  _ she spit back at him. “Lady de Rolo, to you!” She did not need nicknames that he had never called her by in the first place. Mother had called her Cass, when she was very young. Julius had, in fits of benevolence for a baby sister. Ludwig had when he wanted to annoy her. But  _ Percival  _ had always been cooped up in his own thoughts. 

Percival, in the present moment, wasn’t too injured by his own grief not to feel the hit to his pride. His bearing swelled to something resembling its usual arrogance. “I am Lord de Rolo just as much as you are Lady.”

“When? When it suits you? In between your other interests? The people of this city are not toys to be dropped at your convenience-”

“I do not drop them-”

“You drop all of it,” Cassandra said acidly. “You have not been here longer than a year since you were a boy.” Percival had been barely eighteen when the Briarwoods came, and far less a man for it than Cassandra was a lady at the same age now. “I had to teach you how the taxes work, who was in charge of what, who would listen best to good sense over gold. If you want to be Lord de Rolo,  _ act like it.”  _ Whitestone did not permit weakness in her masters. There were people behind the cold stone walls, people who died as easily as the ones Cassandra didn’t have to love. Armor could be broken and bent. Limbs - Cassandra shuddered - could be severed. It was not if - it was When. And Percival would have her sit in bed and be doctored while he, Lord de Rolo, spent weeks _ getting over himself. _

Percival was staring at her. The imprint of her hand was still on his cheek. Without a word, he got up and walked out so carefully he might as well have not bothered with composure and just stormed away. 

Cassandra lay and let the shivers she’d locked in place wrack her body. Being still felt like being locked in Delilah’s spell, but her arms and legs twitching without her consent was worse. She bore it and lay there, breathing heavily but quietly enough that she could be sure Kynan would not hear. He would come in and try to check her temperature again, and he always thought it was too high. He would try to send for Keeper Yennen or the castle physician again. 

She would endure. The night would pass, as all others before it had. 

* * *

 

Tary did not know what to do, so he kept doing what Cassandra had seemed pleased by. He sent apologetic notes to Deastok, and even more apologetic ones to his mother, about his failure to turn up. He stayed in Whitestone and waited, torn, for Vox Machina. 

They had returned, but Vax’s...they had returned without something vital to the group’s essence, more so than just the one subtracted member. Tary didn’t know what it was, but he felt its absence keenly.

The castle still needed to be run. He sent other letters off to Deastok, and threw himself into the work, with little to no free time left over for any personal projects. He meant to continue with his repairs of Doty, but the poor automaton was still languishing as barely roadworthy when Syldor arrived to retrieve Velora.

The young girl - and she was definitely young, Tary had decided, no matter how uncertain her actual age was to him - threw herself into her parents’ arms tearfully. Both father and mother had arrived, with a retinue of elves that exchanged awkward looks at the emotional display. 

    Vex had a particular look about her that told Tary she was restraining some strong emotion of her own. Tary put a gentle hand on the back of her shoulder, and she twitched at the unexpected touch, but did not shake him off. 

    Syldor rose first, his wife - presumably - taking a moment longer to safely hoist Velora into her arms. 

    “Thank you,” he said, and Vex’s eyebrows rose an inch or so at his earnestness, “for ensuring her safety. Which of you is-”

    “Mr. Darrington, delighted to meet you properly,” Tary said, stepping forward. He didn’t offer his hand, because Syldor was still gripping Velora’s shoulder with one hand and holding the tatty little bear in the other. “It was Whitestone’s honor to have her here.”

    “You speak for Whitestone?” Syldor’s eyes flickered to his older daughter. 

    “Nobody’s stopped me yet.” Tary was tired enough to joke, and immediately regretted his words. But Syldor didn’t frown at him, only nodded, looking more carefully at the others in the room. He took in Vex’s loose hair, Percy’s mostly-gone arm. 

    “And what danger caused this trouble in the first place?” Syldor’s wife asked, one hand pressed protectively to the back of Velora’s head. 

    “I’m sorry Velora got mixed up in this, Devanna,” Vex said. “If I’d had any idea there was even a chance, I would’ve - sent word, or done  _ something.” _

    “You brought her back.” Devanna smoothed a hand over Velora’s back. “That’s not nothing.”

    Tary stood and braced himself for Syldor to ask where Vax was, but astonishingly the question never came. Syldor and Vex exchanged a few tense pleasantries, but still he didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. Percy offered a few further words on behalf of Whitestone. The Syngorian party was off again as soon as the conversation was over, neither Syldor or Devanna wishing to stay in the north. The three of them - Tary, Vex, Percy - saw them off at the southernmost gate. 

    Vex exhaled a long breath when the elves had vanished into the trees. “I saw who he’d brought and all I could think was, thank the gods, he thought to have warriors with him,” she said wretchedly. “I don’t know if I could have borne to give her back if he didn’t. The Parchwood’s so full of monsters.”

    “It’s not that bad now, thanks to you,” Percy consoled her. 

    “Oh, I know,” and Vex sounded alarmingly tearful, “but all I can think of is when she was falling, and I almost didn’t catch her, and if - if they  _ both  _ were gone-” Tears started falling in earnest. Both Percy and Tary moved to hug her at the same time, Tary pulling back at the last minute. 

    Percy murmured kind things into her ear, to low for Tary to hear, and cast a fearful glower at where his right arm should have been. His left hand was cupped around the back of her neck, and his thumb was stroking back and forth.

    “I went into her room every night, just to check she was still breathing,” Vex confessed raggedly. “It doesn’t make any  _ sense!” _

    Tary put a steadying hand on her shoulder. “You’re grieving,” he said, “and that - well, it just doesn’t make sense. It’s not silly to be worried about losing your sister, after...everything.”

    Vex managed a watery, brief smile in his direction. “So worried I can barely bear to give her back to her family?”

    “She’s your family, too.” Tary dithered for a moment, then pressed on. “Did I ever tell you about my grandmother?”

    “No.”

    “I’ll tell you as we walk. It’s too cold to stay outside.”

    Vex gave a great sniff and peeled her face off Percy’s now-damp shoulder. Percy was sporting such a thundercloud of a look that, if Tary didn’t know him better, he might suspect the man of restraining his own tears. But Velora was...well, Velora actually was his sister-in-law, but Tary had no idea how attached he might be to the young elf. 

    “My grandmother, Nana Rosemary, died when I was twelve,” Tary said, as they walked. He handed Vex his handkerchief as he continued. “She had been ill for a long time, but I didn’t know much of that or didn’t care. I was only twelve, after all, and I wasn’t very insightful on a good day. I think it was just because she was rather old - one illness is difficult to shake, and suddenly one has a whole host of other difficulties because of that one illness.”

    “I’m familiar,” Vex said quietly, handing back the used handkerchief. 

    “Well, she died and it was all very sudden to me. She was my father’s mother, and he didn’t seem shaken by it at all, though I suppose he could have dropped the act in private. Maryanne, to me, also didn’t seem sad enough about it. I had been much closer to Nana Rosemary than her.”

    “What about you?”

    Tary laughed, a little embarrassed about it all still. “Oh, I cried for days. I was heartbroken. She spoiled me rotten-” He could have sworn Percy muttered ‘imagine that’ under his breath. “-and always listened to me ramble on about the stories I’d read. I kept praying for some kind of miracle, some way for her to return in the picture of health or for time to be reversed or something like that. I was so sure there was a way. At the time I think I still thought of my life in the terms of all those stories I read. There would seem like no hope, but at the eleventh hour, salvation would come. I refused to go into the graveyard for the service, because I thought she was going to come back  _ then  _ and I didn’t want to see her dig her way up out of the grave.”

    “How morbid,” Percy said.

    “Well, she didn’t, so I missed the funeral for nothing and got sent to bed without dinner when we returned home,” Tary sighed. “My father of course was furious with me for being so disrespectful.”

    “And your grandmother?” Vex asked.

    “She didn’t come back. As you can imagine. I stayed upset for a long while, and I kept getting lectured about it by my father. Everything in the house that she had ever touched reminded me of her. For a while anyway.” Tary wondered if he should keep talking. If he’d had such a conversation with his twelve-year-old self, preteen Taryon would probably have tried to hit him. “The truth is, after enough time it just got tiring to keep being upset. I went from actively crying to just being sort of numb, and then eventually I realized that the things I associated with her weren’t that bad anymore. They still reminded me of her, but she had been gone so long that I had stopped expecting to come around the corner and see her in her favorite chair or something like that. It’s rather terrible, but...you get used to how things are.” 

    They walked in silence for a little.

    “It felt terrible,” Tary said abruptly. “When I realized it had stopped mattering as much to me. That rattled me worse than anything since her death. I thought, how could I be so cruel? But all I’d done was kept going on with my life. I think if I hadn’t...well, I don’t know what I would have been like. But you would never have met me, and then where would you all be?”

    Vex snorted - halfheartedly, and half sniffling, but he’d jostled something like a laugh out of her, and that was good enough. 

    Vex had turned her steps towards the graveyard, and both men followed, reluctantly. Vex slowed as they approached the wrought-iron fence. Despite the tall, restored grandeur of the Dawnfather’s temple just inside, her gaze was drawn like a magnet to the mausoleum that had become the small temple of the Raven Queen.

    “Do you think,” Vex began, “we should - do something? For him? I know there’s - there’s nothing to bury, but...”

    “I wouldn’t know if that would help,” Tary said apologetically. “Like I said, I never went to my Nana’s funeral.”

    “If you want to,” Percy said, very quietly. Vex turned and looked at him; whatever she read in his face, she didn’t say aloud.

    “It would feel like a stupid performance,” she said, at length. “Imagine all the shit he’d give us if he saw us do that.”

    “Undoubtedly.”

    They walked back up to the castle. 

    “Tary,” Vex said abruptly as they came to the outermost gate of the castle, “I assume all the things I had to do as Baroness still need to be done?”

    “Yes,” Tary said wearily, thinking of all the work that needed doing. He had no idea how Cassandra managed. He was tired  _ all the time.  _ “And the lumber workers have gotten into some dispute with their union representative, so I have no idea what to do with them, and it’s slowing everything else down.”

    “I’ll take care of it,” Vex said. “I need something to do. I can take Trinket with me if we’re going out to the lumber yards.” She kissed Percy on the cheek, almost as an afterthought, and went off through the gate.

    “Well!” Tary said, in well-deserved relief. “Now I might finally be able to work on Doty again.”

    Percy smiled thinly. “I’ll leave you to it.” 

    Tary almost went in the opposite direction as Percy as they passed across the bridge and into the outer courtyard of the castle. Percy had been aiming for the castle proper, and Tary meaning to go towards the Riflemen’s barracks to see if they’d led him their smithing equipment again. But common sense finally caught up to him, and Tary sprinted until he could catch Percy by the shoulder. 

    “What a fool I am!” He panted. “Talking about Doty and leaving you with only a farewell! Percy, I’m so sorry, it didn’t even occur to me that I could use any of my knowledge of automatons to help you make a prosthetic.” 

    Percy was just staring at him, so Tary kept babbling. “Stupid of me - of course you wouldn’t want some solid thing carved out of wood or what-have-you, you’d never be able to move it like a regular hand, and you being right-handed and all-”

    “Tary!” Percy said. “Enough! The fault is not yours.”

    Tary blinked. “It isn’t?”

    “It’s been weeks,” Percy said. “Do you think  _ I  _ never thought of that?” He rubbed his right arm where it had been torn away, just below the elbow. 

    “You did? Why didn’t you come to see me, then? No, don’t answer,” Tary said with a start. “I’ve been far too busy to see you. I probably missed whatever message you sent-”

    “No,” Percy said, “no,  _ please  _ stop before you get too far down that hole. No. I was-” He stopped, and sighed. “I was going to make one for myself. On my own.”

    “You asked me for help when you needed a new pair of  _ glasses,”  _ Tary said doubtfully. “Because you couldn’t see what you were doing.”

    “Yes. That has been the issue, so far. Not my sight, but...” Percy moved as if to gesture with his right hand, and then visibly bit back several unkind words when the hand that wasn’t there failed to gesture. 

    “As if you  _ need  _ to do it on your own, anyway!” Tary thumped Percy on the back, trying to cheer him up. “If I hadn’t been so busy, I would have been in your workshop for weeks already. I always meant to tell you how to do ball joints, anyway, remember? Remind me of the way and we can get started at once.”

    Percy looked for a second as if he wanted to protest; but then he looked down his arm, and a dark expression stole across his face. 

    “Alright,” he said. “While we both have a moment.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, Tary. He's so fun. 
> 
> Also, I *know* what happened in the Search For Grog, but this is my city now and I will not be dissuaded from giving Percy a cool prosthetic like in Accidents and Reunion.


	4. Patching the Holes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which there is a great deal of Subtle Whitestone Worldbuilding, and I come to the realizations that Cassandra is too big of a plot thread to resolve in just this story.
> 
> Power through, guys, I promised a happy ending for everyone, but this story was *supposed* to be short and I'm still attached to the ending I thought up for it.

    With Vex taking up her duties as Baroness again, she persuaded Percy to follow suit. At least, Percy seemed to have less time for moping around the castle (sorry, wandering aimlessly in his ancestral home) and Tary had a great deal more free time. Most of it he spent in Percy’s workshop or borrowing the Riflemen’s forge. The bullet-maker, the only member of the Riflemen who knew the secret of repairing and forging the metal parts for their rifles (and was summarily forbidden from ever wielding one), had taken a liking to him. 

    A whole hand, along with a forearm, was a difficult thing to put together accurately. Tary studied old work he’d done on Doty (lucky he’d built the automaton so patient), and with the help of Pike’s delightful cousin combed through the library for books on anatomy. He wouldn’t need to construct any muscle or - gods forbid - all those tiny delicate blood vessels, But there were two bones in the forearm that let it twist around to change whether the palm faced up or down, and all those little bones that let a wrist bend every which way. At least fingers were straightforward, and the palm didn’t need to be fancy in any way except to connect it all together. 

    Of course it was  _ going  _ to be fancy in the end. It was a prosthetic for a Lord, after all. But if Tary worried about engraving silver just for a prototype, he was going to lose his mind before the final piece was finished. 

    “Coat and waistcoat off,” he instructed Percy, having finally gotten him for a moment to try it on. Bewildered, Percy’s hand actually went to his buttons before he paused in suspicion.

    “Is this anything to do with you wanting the name of my tailor?”

    “I’ve got to have a way to fasten it to you, don’t I?” Tary held up the mess of cloth straps the tailor had helped him create. “These will be leather for the final version, unless you like the feel of cloth better. I’ve been given strict orders to make sure everything fits absolutely perfectly.”

    “I’m familiar with the tailor’s opinion regarding only pretending an item fits because you want a fitting over with.” The corner of Percy’s mouth actually twitched into something like a smile. Tary beamed back at him, and went to help with the buttons of his waistcoat. They were tiny, fiddly things even with two hands. “The shirt as well?”

    “Not unless you want to. It will all be more comfortable if you have your shirt on underneath.”

    Percy paused. “I’d have to take it off during nights, then.”

    “Vex has seen worse injuries on you, I doubt she cares,” Tary said blithely. He poked at Percy until Percy moved his arms to let Tary manhandle the straps into place. They did fit very well over the shirt. Tary kept up a running commentary on what was meant to go where and how it fastened; Percy insisted on doing all the little buckles himself, one-handed, even though Tary was right there with two empty hands. 

    “Is there a reason it goes around both shoulders like this?” Percy asked, pulling the strap that went across his chest tight. 

    “It will distribute the weight better,” Tary told him. “Metal is going to be much heavier than flesh and bone. I would try to make it lighter, but the only lighter option right now is foil. And knowing you, you’ll want something very durable.”

    Percy accepted the explanation easily. He seemed more interested in the bits that went down his arm towards where the fastenings lay empty for the prosthetic to be attached, or else he couldn’t figure out how to arrange them properly.

    “Those will have to change,” Percy said, giving up and letting Tary buckle what needed to be buckled and tighten what needed to be tightened. “I can’t have some false arm that requires a twenty-four-seven attendant.”

    “Fair enough,” Tary muttered, then stepped back to retrieve the arm itself from the table. “How does it feel empty?”

    Percy swung his arm around, making a face when he couldn’t stretch as far as he was used to. “Adequate. These straps get in the way.”

    “That can’t be helped. The arm’s got to be attached to  _ something.”  _ Tary handed said arm over, knowing Percy would want a look at it before it was put on. “Remember, this is only a first draft.”

    “Mhm,” Percy said, already absorbed in testing the joints. He looked faintly alarmed at the way the hand willingly flopped around on the flexible wrist. “You implied I would be able to move it like a normal hand?”

    “Yes - look there.” Tary had painstakingly etched runes down the length of the fingers and the back of the hand, as well as all around the wrist. They weren’t set with anything yet, but they would be functional. “I’ve left off a few to keep it incomplete, because it’s too expensive to actually artifice just a prototype, but when done properly they’ll give you very good control over the hand.”

    Percy had to juggle the arm a bit to shift his grip on it. “What happens if it breaks and you’re in Deastok?”

    “Hm.” That was a good question, and one that hadn’t occurred to Tary. “Well, the artificing will make it a fair bit more durable, since it will be a magic item. If the regular metal breaks, you could probably have that taken care of yourself. The runes will be laid in silver, so as long as they’re intact you can just re-lay them, with a bit of residuum powder to be safe. But if one of the runes breaks, I’ll have to come and re-artifice it.”

    “Specifically you?”

    “If you let anybody else near these enchantments, ever, I will set Doty on you.”

    Percy laughed a little, which pleased Tary. That was what he had been going for. Only Percy really understood an inventor’s protectiveness over his inventions - maybe a little too well, given all the trouble with the guns and some Doctor Tary had heard about. But anyway, it would do Percy a little good to laugh about  _ something. _

    Besides the harness that went around Percy’s shoulders, there was a strap around the inch or so that remained underneath his right elbow, where the arm would properly attach. That bit was attached to the parts around the shoulder by ring ‘joints’ and buckles. Tary was already thinking of alternatives to all the buckles that could more easily be manipulated with just one hand, as he helped Percy fit the prosthetic on.

    Percy winced as it settled into place. “It’s nothing,” he said, catching Tary noticing. “The wound’s still healing.”

    “It’ll need padding anyway,” Tary said, scrawling a note down on the parchment he’d set aside for revision ideas. It went under  _ what else is there besides buckles?? _ “Stretch out your arms in front of you for me. I need to make sure I got the measurements right.” 

    He kept Percy busy for a good while, making sure everything was the right size and fit well. They both still had other obligations, however, so Tary had to cork his ink bottle and ask Percy for the arm back. Percy grew unexpectedly stormy at the request. 

    “Is there any reason I can’t keep it on until you finish the actual arm?”

    Taken aback, Tary began with a false start, “Well - the thing is - it doesn’t actually  _ do  _ anything it’s supposed to yet. If you want - but I’d have to do the math for the runes all over again unless you wanted to come down here and sit so I could reference what I’ve already done - and then...”

    “Alright,” Percy interrupted, still stormy. He was even worse at undoing buckles than doing them, so he sat and stewed while Tary took the whole mess of a prototype off and wondered what he could say.

    “I’ll be done as soon as I can,” Tary said, as Percy put his clothes on. He was not, Tary noticed, bothering to even attempt all the buttons, except to close his coat so his undone waistcoat was less visible. 

    “Keep me updated on your progress,” Percy ordered, sounding far more like Lord de Rolo than like Tary’s friend. 

* * *

    It stung Cassandra that she was only out in the gardens because Percival had asked Kynan for a spar, but she would take what she could get.

    Kynan had insisted that he would not leave Cassandra’s side while he was on duty - which seemed to be all the time, these days - but he wasn’t doing a stellar job of guarding her at the moment, as he was busy fending off Percival’s sloppy lefthanded sword strikes. 

    Cassandra wouldn’t have paid any attention to the bout if Kynan hadn’t insisted on her staying nearby. She would indulge him this once, but she wasn’t going to have him getting ideas. Besides, the crash of their blades meeting was inescapable, despite the size of the gardens. 

    Kynan was clearly used to rapiers and smaller knives, not the longswords favored by the Pale Guard and generations of de Rolos, but he was doing better than Percival. Percival looked a breath away from being pulled off-balance by his sword at any moment, and his swings were too wide to be much good even if he’d been trying to hit Kynan in earnest. 

    Kynan backed away after one particularly clumsy lunge, lowering his rapier. “I need a break,” he said, and he was a good enough liar that it sounded earnest. He went to retrieve his waterskin and wipe away the sweat gathering on his forehead, while Percival drove his sword point-first into the dirt in frustration.

    He needed to learn not to do that sort of thing in front of people. Kynan was right there. Who knew who he could tell about that sort of thing?

    “Just say it,” Percival snapped. “You could have beaten me easily.”

    “You’re down an arm and used to ranged weapons, my Lord, that’s no compliment to me,” Kynan said. He tensed when Percival’s expression darkened.

    “Do you suggest I take up archery?” Percival’s acid tone could have melted stone.

    “No, I mean you didn’t make a habit of this in the first place, and now your center of gravity is all off. If I may speak honestly, my Lord, you’re making a good start by retraining yourself to get used to how you balance now. I would recommend learning how to use a sword both like this, and once that Tary fellow finishes your prosthetic.” 

    Percival looked away, propping his hand on his hip. 

    “I’m pretty sure you could still take my head off if you got a single hit in, if that helps,” Kynan offered, looking suspiciously amused. 

    “It’s getting a single hit in that’s proving to be difficult,” Percival snapped. 

    “He’s been like this all day,” Vex muttered. Cassandra jumped, and was immediately furious with herself. How had she not noticed Vex standing right behind her?

    Vex, ignorant of Cassandra’s self-chastisement, sat down on the low stone bench next to her. “Percy, I mean,” she said. “I don’t know if this is actually doing him any good.”

    “It will if it makes him learn how to handle a sword again,” Cassandra said levelly. Vex sighed, but did not speak for a long moment. Percival and Kynan returned to their practice bout, and perhaps Percival’s face was schooled into more determination than anger. 

    “What are you doing out here, anyway?” Vex asked. “I don’t see  _ you  _ holding a sword, andI doubt either of them would let you try right now.”

    “If Percival thinks he lets me do anything, he has other problems.” Cassandra looked at Vex out of the corner of her eye, and saw her thoughtful look. Damn. Maybe that had been saying too much.

    “Hey, Kynan!” Vex called out, standing up. Kynan blocked a swing from Percival before he looked over. “I’m borrowing Cassandra for a day or two. Don’t freak out.”

    “Borrowing?” Kynan said incredulously.

    “That’s what I said.” Vex extended a hand to help Cassandra to her feet, leaving Kynan hanging. “Let’s go.”

    Cassandra was so intrigued to be asked, without Vex bringing up her health at all, that she didn’t think to question where they would be going. 

    Trinket was napping by the gate into the gardens, but he lumbered to his feet when Vex came close, eager to follow along. Vex took them through the kitchens, where a small bag was provided for them full of the kinds of food that would stay good a long time, and picked up a bulging travel bag that had been left near the gate.

    “Somebody ought to have noticed that,” Cassandra muttered, as Vex extracted a pair of cloaks that had been rolled up with the bedroll.

    “I told the guard to leave it alone,” Vex said, tossing one of the cloaks at Cassandra. She took it, and wrapped it around herself. It was nearly spring, but Whitestone was still cold. 

    Cassandra still thought that someone ought to have told her of Vex’s preparations, but she didn’t protest. They were both ladies of Whitestone, but Vex by virtue of marriage was  _ the  _ Lady Whitestone. Technically, she could do whatever she liked and never bother telling Cassandra anything. 

    Vex took her north, towards the back of the plateau that the castle had been built on centuries ago. Cassandra lagged behind the closer they got to the edge, but that only made Vex fall back and try to link arms with her.

    “It’s alright, I don’t plan to jump and break my legs,” Vex said. “I found a path down the back last year that’s never failed me. And the Parchwood’s not that bad. Anymore.”

    “You know more than one de Rolo has vanished into the woods, never to be seen again,” Cassandra retorted, eyeing the treeline warily. The Parchwood spread out around Whitestone like a deep carpet, crowding in close to the walls and fences that just barely kept it at bay. Many trees grew higher than the height of the flat plateau which guarded the castle from whatever lurked in the darkness.

    “I didn’t, actually,” Vex said. “Tell me about them.”

    Cassandra still felt shaky, but she spoke as she clung to Trinket on the way down Vex’s treacherous back-door path. She’d learned the legend of the first Master of the Grey Hunt as a child, and his legendary enmity with the witch Morgana who lived in the woods. Morgana had killed most of his family, and his two surviving sisters had vanished into the depths of the Parchwood, never to be found again.

    “I was always told that the witch was just one of many dangers that were left in these lands after the Divergence,” Cassandra was saying, as they reached the bottom. Up close the trees looked more dour than frightening, dim light filtering through their branches to reach the undergrowth. 

    “There’s more deer than real dangers, as far as I’ve seen in these woods,” Vex said. “Maybe they scattered after we came through and fixed things in the city.” 

    “I doubt it.”

    “Maybe I’m just very good at my job.” Vex patted Trinket on the head. “C’mon, buddy. Let’s go see if there’s anything scary for you to chase. You’ve been cooped up far too long.”

    Cassandra hoped Vex hadn’t really come out into the woods to look for a fight. 

    Vex walked through the woods as confidently as she walked through Whitestone’s streets and halls. If not for the trees, Cassandra could have imagined they were still in the castle. Vex dressed more or less the same every day, and Trinket was her constant companion. There really wasn’t much of a difference. 

    ...Except perhaps the ease which settled over her shoulders as she absorbed herself in finding tracks and paths among the trees, and in pointing out nests and burrows for Cassandra’s entertainment. They found a tiny nest in a bush, with three robin-blue eggs, and got harrassed by the robin for getting too close. From a distance, later, Vex’s elvish sight caught a mother fox returning to her den. Two kits poked their heads out to see what was for dinner - an unfortunate rabbit, Vex said, but Cassandra couldn’t make out much more than a brown-red smear of fur and meat. 

    “How do you know this place so well?” Cassandra wondered aloud, as they walked along a narrow deer-track. Vex laughed aloud, startling a starling from its perch.

    “I don’t memorize where everything is!” she said. “I just know how to find it. Forests change too much for memorization to work. That fox will have a different den next year, those birds will build their nest somewhere new unless that spot  _ really  _ works for them. A forest is like a whole city. You just have to understand how the things that live in it work.”

    “...I had never thought of it like that before.”

    “Most people don’t. There’s too much emphasis on making neat paths through the woods, which granted is good for not getting lost, but nobody save for rangers and druids cares enough about working  _ with  _ nature.”

    “They say Erathis and Melora are lovers for a reason,” Cassandra murmured. Erathis, as the Lady of Civilization, had a hall devoted to her in Whitestone’s judicial neighborhood; Melora wasn’t so popular, in a region that had so long been plagued by the things that lived in the forest. 

    “That’s true!” Vex threw an arm over her shoulder, laughing even as Cassandra tensed. “Weirdly, you’re the first person to say it like that. Within earshot of me, at least.”

    Vex let go as quickly as she’d attached herself, moving along the path to catch up with Trinket (who was sniffing around in the dirt). Cassandra had a brief moment to relax. Percival’s wife was so...touchy-feely.  


    Vex pitched a temporary camp under a particularly thick, gnarled tree. Cassandra perched nervously on Trinket, at Vex’s advice, instead of on the spring mud coating the ground under the grass and leaves and general mess that the snowmelt left behind. They ate the food Vex had brought, which was surprisingly good. When the food was gone, they remained there to rest and wait out a small shower of rain that came unexpectedly. 

    “Thanks for coming with me,” Vex said. Her voice was barely audible over the noise of the rain hitting the leaves. 

    There was a lot Cassandra could have said. Vex had more or less demanded her presence. There was still work to do, in the castle. The refugees from the Conclave attack were clamoring to bring over their friends and families from Emon, which was still a wreck, and there was no space in the city for an excess population to overflow into.

    “It was my pleasure,” Cassandra said quietly.

* * *

    Vex lay facedown in the bed, later that night.

    “I don’t know what to do,” she groaned.

    “Cassandra doesn’t hate you,” Percy said. “I don’t know why you think she does.”

    “She  _ has  _ to know it was me. It was an arrow, for Pelor’s sake! And with everything that she’s been through - how could that not affect her?”

    Vex felt the mattress dip as Percy got into bed next to her. She shook her head, which was difficult with her face smushed into the pillow.

    “I can’t believe that she’s fine,” she said. “And I don’t mean that in a pleasantly incredulous way, like  _ oh I can’t believe blah de blah.  _ I  _ don’t  _ believe she’s fine. You know your sister puts on a facade.”

    “Every ruler does, in their time,” Percy said. “Cassandra’s only eighteen. Of course she wants to look responsible and put-together. And she’s always been excessively formal.”

    “She’s  _ eighteen.” _ And Vex meant that she was only a girl still, that Vex had seen a girl on the ground with Vex’s arrow in her chest, that she and Percy had nearly both lost their siblings.

    They  _ had  _ both lost a sibling. A brother. 

    Percy tucked his face into the crook of Vex’s neck. They lay entwined in the darkness of the room, and Vex tried to match her breaths to Percy’s slower ones. The moon peeked in, hanging in the corner of the window.

    “We’re terrible at this responsibility thing,” Vex said. “Haring off at every second and leaving your sister in charge.”

    “She’s done well.”

    “She shouldn’t have had to, Percy. She’d been a prisoner and worse for five years and we expected her to be able to run a whole city with no help.”

    “She had help,” Percy objected. “Archie stayed on, and he knew my father like a brother. Or better than a brother, considering what happened to my uncle. Plus Keeper Yennen is around constantly.”

    “Wait, what happened to your uncle?”

    “He was banished before I was born. It’s not important. But I suppose I see your point about Cassandra.”

    “Do you?” Vex turned her head so that she could look at him. Her nose bumped against a tuft of white hair. Percy raised his head too, so that their gazes met. 

    “I do,” he murmured. Vex’s heart sank as she recalled Percy’s words, when he’d staggered aside after Vax had - been taken. She lowered her gaze, sneaking one arm around Percy’s waist to hold him apologetically. 

    “I can’t imagine how it felt,” she murmured. “I can’t imagine how you made it through that.” The idea of the grief she felt at losing Vax, multiplied by six siblings and two parents - it sounded like more than any mortal thing could bear.

    Percy pressed his lips together, as if preventing himself from saying something quick and witty and unwise. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I almost didn’t.” 

    Vex hugged him closer, pressing her forehead to his. “But you did, darling.”

    “With luck. And help.” Percy leaned back a tiny bit so he could gently thunk his forehead back into hers. 

    “You’re saying Cassandra’s problem is she doesn’t have a Vex of her own?” Vex teased.

    “Worse. She doesn’t have a Vox Machina.”

    “You want to get your sister her own  _ Vox Machina?  _ That’s a tall order.”

    Percy smiled, a little. “I don’t know about getting her her own. But...if  _ I  _ hadn’t had you, I would be in a very different place.”

    “Namely, not your wife’s very comfortable bed?”

    “Oh, I suppose that part too. Though,” Percy added, “we’re in the castle. Technically  _ you’re  _ in  _ my  _ bed.”

    “Tomato, tomahto.” Vex sighed. “We’ve gotten all distracted.”

    “Cassandra can wait til morning,” Percy promised. “We’re both doing all we can.”

* * *

    Gilmore and Kaylie, one of many guests lingering awkwardly in Whitestone’s halls, took their leave a few days later. Gilmore had a somewhat-rebuilt shop to attend to, and Kaylie was going to go to school at the Alabaster Lyceum.

    To further Kaylie’s ends, mostly by paying her tuition, Scanlan was going with them. Scanlan leaving meant Pike had started thinking about things, and wanted to return to Vasselheim to help rebuild. Keyleth had offered to go with her and help, and then Grog had felt left out and wanted to go with Scanlan all of the sudden. None of them knew when they might be returning.

    Nobody could fault Scanlan for wanting to stick close to Kaylie, nor Pike or Keyleth for throwing them at the nearest useful thing they could do, but the goodbyes were long and tearful. Cassandra looked on, keeping to the edge of it all. 

    Gilmore was the only one to come up to her. “I think I shall miss Whitestone after all, no matter how cruel its winters,” he said. “I hope you wouldn’t mind terribly if I ended up promoting my establishment in town.”

    “We don’t control the city that strictly,” Cassandra said. “I’m sure Percival would be thrilled if you moved your shop here.”

    “Nonetheless - thank you for your hospitality, my Lady.”

    Cassandra nodded, wishing Gilmore would stop talking. She was in no mood to make conversation. Thankfully he only inclined his head back, a casual kind of bow, and retreated to join the group clustered around Keyleth. The tall druid opened a gap in the trunk of a tree, as Cassandra had seen her do before, and in a few seconds the gardens were much emptier. 

    Vex sighed, and leaned into Percy. Trinket made a low, mournful noise.

    Cassandra turned around, Kynan at her heels, and went back up to her rooms. There was work to be done.

* * *

    Percy came down to the workshop without his waistcoat, on the day Tary had promised to have the arm finished. 

    Tary didn’t even question it, launching straight into an explanation. “Okay, so I  _ have  _ managed to simplify the straps to attach it somewhat, it’ll go just on your right arm now. You have to tell me if there’s an issue with that in the future. Now tell me what you think of this improved thumb joint-”

    As he rambled on, Percy looked with interest at the arm itself. It went from just under the elbow down to the tips of the fingers, made of metal (Tary was no woodworker) and set with runes down its full length. The runes, silver on pale grey, were just barely visible if one was looking for them. Percy tested the carefully-articulated joints, tiny runes laid into each one and along the blunt fingers. 

    The back of the hand bore no runes. Tary had shifted them onto the actual wrist and knuckle joints instead of just around them, which he knew would give him hell if he ever needed to repair them, but it left space for a shallow engraving of the de Rolo sun. He had copied the more elaborate design from an old book JB had found for him in the library, curlicues and all. Percy’s fingers settled on it, and he was so still that Tary was afraid he might have done something wrong.

    “Do you want to try it on or not?” Tary asked. Percy jolted back into motion.

    “Of course,” he said. Tary showed him the new fastenings on the harness. The buckles had been replaced with toggles, half hidden by the decorative tooled designs. Tary also produced the alternate cloth straps, decorated with braids and frogging as a fastener. Percy almost laughed at the alternative, and fumbled only a little with the leather and toggles.

   “So, once you’ve got this on, I’ll give you the phrase I keyed it to,” Tary said, making a few last-minute adjustments to the padding on the end of the arm which would actually be attached. “That will ensure that it’s just you who has control over the arm. There’s two phrases, one to make it ‘wake up’ and act like a real arm, and one to turn it off.”

    “Turn it off?”

    “If you take it off, but don’t say the ‘off’ phrase, it will keep acting like it’s attached to your arm. This is less stress, trust me.”

    Percy looked intrigued. No doubt he was already turning over several possibilities in his mind. “What’s the phrase?”

    “Arm on first. I made sure to pick something you’d never say in real life.”

    “Now I’m curious.” Percy didn’t comment on how Tary was holding the arm in place while he fastened the toggles. When it was secure, Tary let go and fished a slip of parchment out of his pocket.

    “Here, say this aloud.”

    Percy read it over, and his eyebrows shot up. “‘Gods save the emperor’? Ouch!” The runes on the arm sparked blue-white as they activated. Percy flinched at the sudden shock.

    “See?” Tary laughed. “I never say that, and I’m  _ from  _ the Empire.”

    “I take your point,” Percy said, looking down at the metal fingers. They flexed, curling in towards the palm and then stretching out flat. “I can’t feel anything.”

    “That  _ is _ the downside of metal. It’s not very tactile.” Tary wavered, then plunged forward. “It can hold onto things, but the wrist can only turn so far, and I don’t think it will be much good for writing, as you can’t turn the arm itself.” 

    Silently, Percy flexed the fingers again. They were rather spindly, and looked awkward and false compared to his flesh hand. Tary wished he hadn’t referenced Doty quite so much. Percy withdrew a pair of gloves from his pocket, and tugged them on - carefully, with the new hand, and then more confidently over the metal fingers.  


    “Thank you,” Percy said.  


    “Oh. Oh! You’re very welcome. I wouldn’t have dreamed of _not_ doing it-”

    “For once, Tary, just accept a compliment and don't say anything.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tary is surprisingly fun to write. I don't know if I've got his character 100% quite yet, but I have at least 60%


	5. Farewell Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's so much angst in this that isn't going to get properly resolved until the next story in this series, and ain't that just how life goes sometimes?
> 
> Cass has a long road ahead of her, but I think it'll be okay in the end.

    Released from the project that had been occupying so much of his time, Tary wandered out into the outer courtyard. A few of the Pale Guard were running practice drills near the gate. Jarett stood at the head of the group, arms crossed. Tary couldn’t tell if the guards were doing well or not. Jarett had an exceptionally neutral resting expression. 

    On a whim, Tary climbed the stairs to the ramparts that ran along the inside of the curtain wall. They were built just wide enough that two people could pass each other, going opposite ways. A few of the Pale Guard currently on watch nodded to him in faint confusion. 

    Tary leaned against the tall crenellations, looking down to the city below. The Sun Tree was a blob in the dead center of it, new spring growth budding to cast a green haze over the branches. It was a good sign by anyone’s estimation. Tary had heard of how the Sun Tree stood bare and leafless for years, until Percy’s return and Vox Machina’s outsing of the villainous occupiers. 

    From a distance, it almost looked like the city was shrinking away to give the tree space to grow anew. There was some ancient law on the books that forbade any building being constructed that would cast a shadow over the Sun Tree, so everything closest to it was only one story tall. Only towards the city walls did the buildings ramble upwards into three or even four stories. It was a striking, if slightly silly, effect. 

    One of the guards called a warning a moment before the rider came into Tary’s line of sight. 

    No, not one rider - it was a group of horsemen, with a few heavily laden ponies among them. They were heading purposefully towards the main gate, though they were going at a slow pace. Tary strode across the ramparts and into the tall gatehouse, where there was already a flurry of activity. 

    “Do  _ you  _ recognize them?” A helmeted woman asked Tary. 

    “Do they look Wildemountean?” Tary asked. “I couldn’t tell. I doubt I know them.”

    “A bit Wildemountean, from the breed of horse they’ve got,” said an elf who was standing at the window. Tary came up beside her to look. It was difficult to see any of the riders. The gatehouse looked across the bridge, and the portcullis on the far side of it was down. It kept the riders from getting into the castle, but also meant that to Tary they might as well have been invisible.

    “They looked like they’d been traveling for a while,” he mused, trying to get a glimpse. Flashes of rich clothing and brown horse showed through the portcullis. “They were going at a walk, and they had pack ponies. They must have come across with their horses on a ship.”

    “They would have come up from around Drynna, then,” said the woman who had first spoken to him. “That’s the closest port.”

_     “If  _ they came from Wildemount at all,” interjected a third guard. 

    “Drynna’s not a port,” someone muttered. “It’s on an inland lake.” There was a clash of armor suspiciously like the sound of somebody getting elbowed right in the chain mail, and a grunt. 

    Into the awkward moment strode Jarett, hand on his rapier. “Who is it?” He asked, not sharply but very much like a man who expected to be answered, and quickly. 

    “The main gatehouse is signaling,” said the elf, who no doubt was best suited to picking out lantern signals in broad daylight. “Unexpected guests. Someone over there is talking about being invited.”

    “Send word to - no, you go,” Jarett said, checking himself as he spotted Tary. “You’re as good as in charge around here. Ask them what their business is, by whose invitation they came, et cetera.”

    A minute after Tary left the room, Jarett leaned over to one of the guards and muttered, “And tell the Lord and Lady what’s happening, just to be safe.”

* * *

    The bridge didn’t take a long time to cross. The riders saw him coming at once, and the man in the lead hailed him as soon as Tary came within a few feet.

    “This is a harsh welcome and no mistake,” said the rider.

    “Whitestone can be a harsh place,” Tary said, “and it’s paid dearly for being less cautious than was wise when it comes to guests. I am Taryon Darrington, though you’ve probably heard of me. What’s your name, and what brings you to Whitestone?”

    “I am Yakov Vitalyevitch Karyavin,” said the rider in the lead, who sat astride a huge black destrier. A green cloak swept down over the horse’s hindquarters from his shoulders, and the travel-stained state of his clothes didn’t completely downplay their fineness. He was youngish, and scruffy in a way that was partly from intent and partly from the long journey he had made to get as far north as Whitestone. “I was led to believe that word had been sent from Whitestone, seeking a man of suitable station who could be persuaded to come and aid in the city’s governing.”

    “Oh!” Tary perked up at once. Good old Mama, always coming through. She must have gotten the letter he’d send asking for help. “Did Maria Darrington send you?”

    “She did. She sent a letter of introduction for myself and my men, as well, but your guards took it.”

    One of the Pale Guard lingering, with suspicion, inside the gate produced a sealed scroll. Tary took it, smiling as he recognized his mother’s personal seal.

_     Dearest Tary, _

_     I got your letter and spent much time worrying about how to respond, but I figured that an answer to your plea would be the best way to do so, never mind how long it may take for it - or rather him - to arrive. As you went into great detail about the gaps in Whitestone’s Chamber and its governing in general, I took care to find someone who would suit your most important needs above all else.  _

_     The man before you is Yakov Vitalyevitch Karyavin, as I am sure you have already discovered. The Karyavin family is very small here in the Empire, and used to only cling to former nobility, though their station has improved in the last few generations (I believe they were once a family conquered by the Empire, which would explain their dire straits). They run several small merchant companies here in the Empire. The reason for their minor status is because they send these companies out to remote places that often do not benefit from imperial industry as much as towns like Zadash or Hupperduk do, and thus spend quite a bit of their profits on mercenaries and bodyguards to ensure the goods actually get there. _

_     In addition, I believe the Karyavins are actually distantly related to your de Rolos, though by such a long chain of people going so far back that I cannot possibly write all those names down. I am sure you can learn the specifics in person.  _

_     Regardless, Mr. V. Karyavin is raised and trained in such a family and has experience with these matters, to an extent. However, he is the fifth son of five, and unlikely to get anything of the meager Karyavin fortune if he stays. I implied to him that Whitestone would be a place where a man could improve his station in life significantly, and he fairly leaped at the chance. I am afraid that by now he would be dreadfully upset if you tried to send him home, but I doubt it will come to that. _

_     Please write back soon, or even better come in person. I am saddened by every day of delay and wait for any word you can send.  _

_     Love,  _

_     your dear Mother _

“If you’re Yakov, who are your men?” Tary asked curiously, rolling the letter back up with a light feeling in his chest. 

“These are Dionyzya Zhelenov and Isaak Ostrenga,” Yakov said, gesturing to each man - or rather, first to the dwarvish woman on a stocky draft horse, and then to the human in the grey cloak. “They have worked for my family for many years. When I asked if any wanted to come with me to Whitestone, they volunteered in hopes of improving their own fortunes.”

“And do you all come from Deastok, or nearby?”

Yakov laughed. “Nearer to Kamordah, in the mountains. My family sent a lot of the miners' stones and gems on their way to Rexxentrum.”

“Oh, you must be from Nzhiny!” 

“Yes, you’ve heard of it?”

“In vague terms. Open the gate,” Tary commanded. “They’re not here to rob us.”

The portcullis was winched up with a grinding of chain and more than a few Pale Guard standing ready, just out of site - just in case. Yakov and his friends trotted through onto the bridge. Tary had seen right; they were accompanied by two packhorses, no doubt carrying the collapsed tents they’d slept in on the way and other paraphernalia. 

Yakov dismounted once they were through, striding forward to clasp Tary’s hand with a laugh. “I’m glad I wasn’t misled! I tell you, hearing of Whitestone was some of the best news I’ve had in a while. But it wasn’t very specific.”

“I couldn’t be specific, at the time,” Tary said. He had to raise his voice to be heard - the main gate portcullis was being lowered again, keeping everybody securely inside. “Quite honestly I’d have taken anybody that was sent. There’s only four-sevenths of a council and - well - they’re all doing their best. Which is excellent, but a lot of non-Chamber members are being roped into the work.”

“Like yourself? I didn’t know the Darringtons were related to the de Rolos, by the way.”

“Oh, we’re not. That I know of,” Tary added. “Perc- the current Lord de Rolo is a close personal friend.”

“Really!” Yakov seemed impressed. “What is he like?”

“Friendly enough, quite intelligent. Not a man to cross, but not one to be afraid of just by looking at him. And not at all the type to throw his power around on a whim - not cruelly or ignorantly, at least.”

Yakov nodded. “I haven’t heard much of this Percival. That’s good news.”

“You know his name?”

“We do pay attention to the outside world, even in Nzhiny.”

“Fair enough, I suppose.”

The portcullis on the interior side of the bridge was still shut. Tary could see several of the Pale Guard still lurking at the windows, watching the group’s approach.

“Give me a second,” he told Yakov. “There’s lots of security around here, but I can sort it out. Hey!” He shouted up to the window. “You can let us in, it’s alright!”

The windows darkened as several guards quickly pretended they hadn’t been watching. After a moment, one of the skinny panes unlatched and swung inward. 

“You could have mentioned that you’d invited friends,” Percy called down. 

“I didn’t think you were in the mood to listen, then,” Tary shouted back, skirting around the fact that he’d more or less forgotten about the letter he’d sent until Yakov produced its response. “Would you let me back in so I can give you an explanation?” He waved the scroll tantalizingly.

There was a smudge of Percy’s white hair behind the window - he wasn’t leaning out, it was too small and deep for that - but no way to tell if he was smiling. After a second or two, a greenish mage hand dropped down from the gatehouse and reached for the scroll. Tary let it go, and the mage hand whisked it up to Percy. 

Yakov tapped his foot impatiently into the silence. 

Percy could have teleported, for how suddenly he appeared in a swirl of blue coat on the other side of the portcullis. “You’re related to the de Rolos? How?” He demanded. 

“Several generations ago on my mother’s side,” Yakov said promptly. “Her family is descended from the old Jarls, from before the Empire conquered everybody. A thrice-great grandfather had a brother who married into the de Rolos, many generations ago for you. I believe we’re...fourth, no, fifth cousins once removed?”

“That’s very specific,” Percy said faintly. 

“I had a good teacher,” Yakov said cheerfully. “A de Rolo one, in fact. We have your tapestry.”

“You  _ what?!” _

* * *

There was plenty of business to be worked out, and it took up so much time that Yakov sent letters home asking after the tapestry before the business had even started to get anywhere. 

    Cassandra wanted to know if the Karyavins were old collaborators with the Briarwoods, for it had been the Briarwoods who sold off the tapestry along with a great many of the castle’s former treasures. Percy wanted to know if the fifth son of a minor noble house was actually trustworthy enough to fill one of the positions of Whitestone’s Chamber. Vex wanted to know why the two of them were spending weeks arguing when they still had three empty seats in the Chamber and no shortage of urgent business that could easily be transferred to whoever held any of those three seats. 

    Percy and Cassandra talked, if that was the right word for it, for a long time while they waited for a reply to Yakov’s letters. Tary was of the opinion that Yakov should stay whether he was admitted to the Chamber or not, for the man turned out to be charismatic to a fault and uncomplaining in a way few nobles were. He had brought enough money with him to settle in a niceish row house while his fate was squabbled over, and set his compatriots free of any obligation to him unless they really wanted to stay in his service. Dionyzya promptly signed up to join the Pale Guard, but Isaak stayed. 

    It was all giving Cassandra a headache. Having a stranger pulled into Whitestone’s business, by Taryon of all people and by surprise, had done her no good. Percival, damn him, was more solidly on Vex’s side of things every day. He had promised to let her have total control over the next two appointments if she would allow them to appoint the man Curator of trade - there was no talk of filling any of the two other noble houses, at least - but even that seemed bitter to swallow.

    And it didn’t help that currently, all the work dealing with trade (who was allowed to sell it, how much did the city and the Lord and Lady get, who did they have deals with in the south for various goods and in exchange for what) landed on Cassandra’s desk. 

    Shuffling papers did no good to make the piles of parchment and unopened letters smaller, either. But it did make Cassandra notice, as she went through the letters, one with a particularly untidy scrawl that didn’t appear to be from any kind of ambassador or petitioner or simpering, spying well-wisher. It was sealed with a blob of plain wax, not stamped with any recognizable insignia - it wasn’t even stamped at all. 

    She opened it. 

    There were several lopsided, scribbled-out false starts at the top of the page, perilously close to the edge. In several places a line skidded straight off, as if onto the table on which it had been written, and the ink had bled along the edge of the parchment. Evidently, the writer had never been tutored in composition. Or handwriting; it took a moment for Cassandra to decipher the messy script, somewhere between Common and Halfling letters, and realize the writer had simply opened with her name.

_     Cassandra, _

_     Everyone here is an idiot or a rich idiot and you’re the only smart person I can think of (despite being rich), so I’m writing to you because otherwise I’ll go mad or get stupider instead of learning anything here.  _

_     The Alabaster Lyceum is like a discount Whitestone, purely talking about architecture, and they try to make up for it by adding in all these columns and crown molding and shit. I could have done better in my sleep. _

    It went on for some time like that in the same vein, with very little mention of the cost and magical effort that had been put into restoring the Lyceum after the deadly dragon attack that most of Emon still lay in pieces because of. Cassandra could guess easily who it was from, and was vindicated when at the end it said,

_     Write back if you feel like it or if you just plain want me to not be driven crazy by my new classmates.  _

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ _ Kaylie _

    Cassandra was still holding the open letter, chin in her hand, when Kynan rapped on the door. 

    It was only a brief warning before he opened it, to admit the maid who had brought up Cassandra’s dinner tray. Eleanor put the tray down with a smile, as always, and Cassandra gratefully reached for the hot cup of tea that was placed before her. She leaned back, still holding Kaylie’s letter in her other hand, while Eleanor shuffled papers around to clear space so she could set down the plates. 

    “I saw a clump of snowdrops growing in the kitchen garden earlier,” Eleanor related cheerfully as she arranged Cassandra’s dinner to her liking. “It’s been a grey few weeks, but spring is coming whether Whitestone likes it or not, make no mistake.” She took the cover off the largest plate, and a warm smell filled the room.

    “Thank you, Eleanor.”

    Eleanor bustled out with the tray and the covers, pausing to give Kynan and Ben (one of the afternoon guards) their own dinners. Cassandra heard her say that the night shift would be up shortly to relieve them. 

    Was it that late already? Cassandra put Kaylie’s letter aside, glancing out the window. The sun was setting, sure enough. She’d have to start lighting candles if she wanted to keep working.

    Perhaps she could spare one or two, to pen a reply to Kaylie.

* * *

    There was much back and forth between Yakov and his family, but eventually an agreement was reached, and after an unbearable number of weeks another team of horsemen arrived at Whitestone. There were six of them, bearing a long, rolled-up length of cloth between them.

    Tary had been working with the castle staff all week, trying to find a good place for it to be hung. Percy remembered it being in the library, but there was no wall space long enough for it there. Eventually Tary suggested they put it up on one of the long walls with no windows; the residential part of the castle hugged the curtain wall, and no windows had been built there except for arrow slits every ten feet. Percy had agreed, and that was where the tapestry was hauled up the stairs to.

    Practically the entire castle, servant or guest, had found a reason to be in the hallway that day. The lead horseman, a cousin of Yakov’s called Radoslav, put the tapestry down with a relieved huff.

    “There you are,” he said. “We packed it up so the oldest bits are at this end. If you hang it and just keep unrolling it, it will be right-side up and proper.”

    Percy nodded. He had been struck dumb at the sight of the tapestry. Rolled up as it was, in a bundle as thick around as a stocky goliath, it showed only a mirrored section of the designs on the front side. Tary hadn’t gotten close enough to try and read the reversed names. 

    “Let’s get it up, then!” Vex was much more excited than Percy or Cassandra. Cassandra stood watching with an iron gaze as she, Percy, and Radoslav hauled the tapestry upright. Radoslav’s men and the castle staff readied themselves to help unroll it, and fasten it to the wall. 

    “Ready,” Percy said, after taking a moment to close his eyes and breathe deeply. 

    A collective breath - gasps, appreciative ‘oooh’s, sighs - went around the room as the first few inches were revealed. The tapestry’s border was a riot of color and activity on a field of deep de Rolo blue. Golden and green leaves decorated the fringe, reaching up from what was obviously the Sun Tree. A group of people stood at its base, with horses and tents. Above the tree, poised as if sailing past or even down towards it, a longboat with a raised sail and shields put out along its sides stood at the head of a small fleet. 

    The same pattern that formed the Sun Tree’s branches, in grey and brown, formed the branching connection between the names that were revealed. Each was done in bright silver, from  GERDA OF ROLLO  to the more familiar  JULIA DE ROLO,  and so on. 

    Percy touched Julia’s name with reverent fingers. “She was the one who had this commissioned,” he said. “In her day, the really prolific and expensive weavers could make enchanted tapestries, ones that could change on their own. She wanted to make sure that even the de Rolos who came after her would be remembered, in a way that couldn’t be easily destroyed.”

    “Julia sounds awesome,” Vex said, eyeing with curiosity the two generations that came before her. “You’ll have to tell me about her later.”

    Percy walked slowly as the tapestry unrolled, drinking in each new name and picture. The crowd moved along with him. There were no portraits, but the space that wasn’t filled with names and decorative Sun Tree imagery was filled with action. Tary guessed it was the history of the de Rolos as much as the family tree was. Knights and warriors fought with swords and bows; ladies were married and children ran from one parent to another. Lords sat on thrones, and the castle towers bracketed more than one important-looking scene. 

    All of the individual scenes were kept between borders of double lines; between the lines themselves were birds and unicorns and fleur-de-lys, crowned hawks and de Rolo suns outlined in real gold thread. 

    Towards the end, Percy stopped dead. Vex gasped. Tary quit lingering over the drama that he was sure was present in the images around  ULFRIC DE ROLO I,  and hurried to rejoin his friend.

    Percy’s name, unlike all the others in the tree, was done in bright gold. So was Vex’s , just above it and further to the right. Several silvery names down from Percy was  CASSANDRA,  also in gold.

    Tary came to the unpleasant realization that everyone on the tree, save for those three, had their name written in silver because they had died. He came to a second one when he realized that Vex had not gasped because she’d seen her own name; it was because she’d seen Vax’s. 

   “You weren’t kidding when you said  _ everyone  _ got put down on the tapestry,” Vex said, in a wavering voice. Percy reached over to twine his left hand in hers. 

   “I had to memorize everybody’s names when I was ten or so,” he said. “Even the ones who were only the parents or siblings of somebody who had married in.”

“It must have taken ages.” 

“Only - only because we had to do it as a group. I...Whitney was always distracting everybody.”

Vex looked at Percy in surprise. Cassandra went cold and quiet as stone. 

“Siblings are like that,” Vex said quietly. “Terrors one moment, your best friend the next.” 

* * *

Radoslav was paid what had been agreed on for the tapestry - far less than it was really worth, Tary was sure - and stayed for a few days more in Whitestone, spending pocket change on whatever caught his or his men’s fancy. They stayed just long enough to see Yakov be officially appointed Curator of Fortune’s Bounty - that was, a member of the Chamber and master of all trade that came in or out of Whitestone.

It was a good ceremony, if brief and somewhat sparse. There was very little finery left in castle Whitestone, aside from what the Briarwoods had considered necessities, and that included ceremonial trappings. Plus, Percy had been given very little time to come up with something suitably formal. 

    The four members of the Chamber assembled by the base of the Sun Tree, and a curious crowd gathered around them in seconds. All four, even Keeper Yennen, had dressed up for the occasion. Cassandra looked more regal than ever, in an outfit of pale blue with golden embroidery everywhere one looked. Vex was in a dress with a swooping neckline, and Percy was wearing a pair of white gloves that Tary had never seen before, with thread-of-gold suns embroidered onto their backs that nearly matched the shine of Keeper Yennen’s symbol of office: a brass pin in the shape of balanced scales. Even Yakov had produced a brocade jacket from somewhere, and his boots were polished to a shine that rivaled the clearest mirror.

    Cassandra had Yakov take the oath of service, composed by Percy two nights before. He gave most of it facing the citizens of Whitestone, rather than Cassandra, as if addressing them instead of just being paraded in front of them, which had the effect Percy had hoped for. Most of the crowd looked approving. When Yakov was given the ring of office, marked with Chamber’s seal, nobody hesitated to applaud. Tary saw Isaak lean over to admire the iron ring as Yakov stepped back to join him, and couldn’t help puffing up a little in pride. He’d been the one to forge the ring, adding the delicate patterns of the Chamber’s seal - a round shield with a scale pattern, inside a laurel crown. 

    “There is one more thing to be done here today,” Percy said, projecting his voice so the crowd could hear him. He had stepped forward, letting Cassandra fade back alongside Vex and Kynan. “These last few years have been tumultuous for Whitestone. Much of what was once established has been forgotten, or lost. Some of you may feel that Whitestone, down to the dirt in the fields, may never recover.

    “But what was forgotten can be remembered, rediscovered. What was lost has already been returned. And those who dedicated themselves to Whitestone, to pulling our city out of the gloom with time and effort that was never promised or expected, a just reward must come.”

    “Taryon.”

   Tary had  _ not _ expected his own name to be the next word out of Percy’s mouth. Percy gave Tary a look that said Tary should have come up to him before Percy had needed to give a look. Percy stood a few steps up on the low flight of stairs that had been built into the marble archway which surrounded the Sun Tree, Cassandra and Vex at his back. 

    Tary came forward to the base of the stairs, trying to silently ask Percy with a pointed stare what in the world he was doing. Doty creaked like he was about to move, and Tary made a quick, frantic gesture at him, and restrained himself from giving Lionel a dirty look when the latter laughed. 

    “Generations ago,” Percy said, less to Tary and more to the crowd as a whole, “my four times great-uncle established a number of institutions in Whitestone, some of which still stand today. Others, it falls to us to re-establish.” A murmur of interest went through the crowd as he looked down at Tary. “Some days it may seem that the workings of the city move onwards and crush the smaller gears between the larger ones so that their aid goes unnoticed. I hope you didn’t think your contributions had been forgotten.”

    “I didn’t take it personally,” Tary assured him. “I know exactly how busy you are, remember.” The Lord of the city had a lot on his plate. 

    The corner of Percy’s mouth twitched like he was suppressing a smile. A few people in the crowd laughed, and were hastily shushed. 

    “And what if you were charged with other duties in Whitestone?” Percy asked. “Not just the protection of its interests, but of its ordinary people and their wellbeing? Would you fulfil such a duty as easily?”

    “You know perfectly well that ‘Rescue A Maiden’ was on my list! Good lord. As if I could shirk anything like that if it needed doing. Whitestone doesn’t need to demand those things of me for me to do them.” 

    “To what end? Wealth, or power?”

    “Lordship has made you cynical,” Tary sniffed. “Imagine going around on quests to rescue the common folk and expecting to get paid heaps of gold for it. Not that that wouldn’t be nice - but that’s not the point! The point is doing good, and all that. Power, well, anybody will get better with a sword and with magic if they practice on monsters all the time. But if you’re only in it, as it were, for yourself, then you have nobody around to make taking pride in your accomplishments worth it.”

    Tary was mostly thinking about his inventions as he spoke, and how happy he’d always been when his Mama exclaimed over them no matter how childish or poorly built. A shout of ‘Yeah!’ from Lionel jolted him back to the present. Lionel gave him a pair of thumbs up when Tary glanced at him.

    Percy was wearing a small, amused smile when Tary looked back. “And would you swear by that?”

    “I don’t say anything I’m not willing to swear by,” Tary said. “You know that. Where is this meant to be going?”

    Percy gestured at him again. “Take a knee."  


    Tary hesitated, still uncomprehending. Percy drew, slowly, the sword hanging in its sheath on his hip. Slowly, because he drew it with his left hand, and probably didn’t want to take Tary’s head off on accident. Slowly, Tary sank to one knee. 

    “I hold you to your oath,” Percy said. Had Tary sworn an oath? The sword came to rest on Tary’s shoulder, and the sudden realization of what was happening nearly deafened him to Percy’s next words. “I expect you to do the same. But for your service, your courage in general, and for your faithfulness to Whitestone without expectation of reward -” The sword had moved to tap him on the other shoulder, then back to his right again. “-I name you Ser Taryon Darrington.”

    There might have been cheering. Tary wasn’t sure. Percy had to give him a hand back to his feet. Vex rushed forward to give him a congratulatory hug. 

   “We had to give you something before you leave,” she whispered in his ear.

* * *

   “You  _ knighted me?” _

    “It was Vex’s idea,” Percy said. His office, sequestered behind the Chamber’s meeting room, had an incredible view, compared to anywhere else in the castle. Tary was too distracted to pay it any mind. Vex was pouring three glasses of what looked like a very old vintage of wine. “You’ve done more than any of us even thought to ask you for.”

    “But you didn’t  _ tell  _ me!” Tary wailed, less genuinely upset than he was still shocked. He’d been given a knight’s sword, something light for a cavalryman, and was still holding onto it like it might slip out of its sheath and start swinging of its own accord. The crest of Whitestone was marked on the join between the hilt and the guard. “I could have been so much more eloquent-”

_     “You _ could have been more eloquent? Vex gave me the idea last night! Why do you think I didn’t have an official oath for you to swear yet?”

    “I thought you were trying to be clever.” Sudden doubt struck Tary. “Is there even a real knighthood in Whitestone?”

    “Not since my grandfather’s day.” Percy took a sip from the glass Vex handed him. Tary gripped his own tightly. “There were some elderly knights still around when I was young, but knights in name more than in deed. I’m sure they were knighted for a reason, though. And the Order of the Unicorn has been around since the first or second generation of de Rolos.”

    “The Order of the Unicorn?” Vex repeated, laughing.

    “Whitestone’s crest was originally a unicorn at the base of the Sun Tree,” Percy said, entirely seriously. “It was changed by my-”

    “Yeah, alright, okay. Thirteenth great grandfather thought it was a good idea, and all that.”

    “That, and there wasn’t space for it  _ and _ the Champions’ stars on the crest.”

    “I’m not even going to  _ be  _ in Whitestone for much longer!” Tary said, feeling somehow that the conversation was getting away from him. “Are you sure you’re allowed to do that?”

    “Very. I skipped the traditional grant of land and oaths of service to your Lord, so you won’t get too stretched thin between myself and the Emperor.”

    “I’m not good enough to own land in Whitestone?”

    “If you’re not here, no.”

    “You get an honorary extra seat on the Chamber instead,” Vex added slyly. 

    “A seat on-” Tary sputtered. “You’re still just trying to pawn work off on me!”

    “If I thought you were going to be here to pawn it off on, maybe.” 

    “You can’t exactly turn it down,” Percy said. “You swore an oath. In front of numerous witnesses.”

    “Of course I don’t want to turn it down! I just-” Tary put his sword down firmly on the table.  _ “Warn  _ me next time.”

    “Next time!” Percy laughed. “Alright, agreed. Next time.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he had to get that Ser he published under from somewhere, right?? though i'll be honest, I only remembered that Tary was canonically knighted halfway through writing that scene


End file.
